


The Origin of IT: A Cautionary Faerytale

by HolidayFeartree



Category: Dark Tower - Stephen King, IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Dark Fantasy, Dark Tower References, Derry (Stephen King), Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fae & Fairies, Fae Magic, Fairies, Fairy Tale Elements, Fairy Tale Retellings, Fantasy, Gilead (The Dark Tower Series), Inspired by Stephen King, Inspired by Stephen King's IT, Mages, Magic, Monsters, Necromancy, Original Character(s), Out of Character Pennywise (IT), Pennywise (IT) Exists, Pre-Fall of Gilead (The Dark Tower Series), Rituals, Romance, Sex, Sorcerers, Stephen King Multiverse, Stephen King's IT References, Wings, Wizards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:16:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 22,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27686141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HolidayFeartree/pseuds/HolidayFeartree
Summary: There is a great deal that we don't know regarding what brought IT (Pennywise) to Earth billions of years before the settlement of the Derry township. Billions of years before IT became "Pennywise". This tale aims to answer those unanswered questions by following the tale of a creature called Legion, aka the "Orange Bend" of Maerlyn’s Rainbow. This takes place in the Dark Tower setting.
Relationships: Pennywise (IT) & Original Female Character(s), Pennywise (IT)/Original Character(s)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 7





	1. Forward

Forward:

[ **_Maerlyn's Rainbow_ ** ](https://stephenking.com/2020/the_office/rainbow_doc/)   
_An excerpt_

_By Robin Furth_

_(_ _literary assistant to Stephen King)_

_"At the beginning of our era there were no worlds and no universes, only the seething, raw magic of the Prim. This phosphorescent soup of creation grew like a great, hungry, opalescent ameba. It ate the nothingness, and in the silence it murmured and whispered._

_First to erupt from the depths of the Prim was Gan, spirit of the Dark Tower. Tall and grey-black, he pushed into the sky, the windows that spiraled round his barrel flashing with an electric-blue light. From the center of Gan’s forehead stared a great oriel window of twelve colors: crimson, **orange** , yellow, pink, dark blue, dark green, indigo, lime, azure, violet, brown and pearl grey. Though the window was beautiful, the circular pane at its center glowed black as the emptiness of todash space."_


	2. Flagg The Hooded

Overshadowing the vast expanse of the Land of Endless Snows, a sinister man peered down from the highest window of his wizard’s tower. They called him [**Flagg**](https://stephenking.fandom.com/wiki/Randall_Flagg). However, it _was_ rumored he went by a number of other aliases, attached to a number of different faces, each presented across a number of different worlds. Regardless, in _this_ place, in the very alchemical workshop and laboratory in which he stood, he was Flagg the Hooded - a dark wizard who practiced magic so destructive and corrupt that once a spider walked across the words of one of his spell scrolls and instantly turned to stone. 

Flagg’s dark magic consumed his long, unnatural life. And because of this horrific gift he’d been given, the wizard was fiendishly _dedicated_ to the [**Crimson King**](https://darktower.fandom.com/wiki/Crimson_King). 

All one needed to know to fear Flagg was his reputation for his service to the Red, fulfilling the commands of the ultimate ruler of the Outer Dark. In fact, his commitment had been so unwavering that he’d spent the longer half of his recent years scheming, and achieving, a diabolical plan. The _plan_ in question was to steal the Bends O’ the Bow from an ageless, rogue sorcerer who served no one ...only chaos. The _sorcerer_ , in question, was [**Maerlyn**](https://darktower.fandom.com/wiki/Maerlyn). The Bends O’ the Bow were also known as the Wizard’s Rainbow but, historically, they were called [**Maerlyn’s Rainbow** ](https://darktower.fandom.com/wiki/Maerlyn%27s_Rainbow). 

Through a very long, very _detailed_ scheme of events - events so detailed that retelling them would necessitate a compendium of writings from a single-hearted wordsmith - Flagg the Hooded managed to abscond with six of the thirteen bends that once comprised Maerlyn’s Rainbow. Each bend was an orb - a sphere of glass, if you will - and each orb contained a special power that was assigned its own, unique color. 

**Blue, lime, yellow, purple, black, and orange.** These were the almighty six bends that, through Flagg’s trickery, came into the possession of his great Crimson King. 

_(from The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Reborn)_

One might wonder what sort of powers each bend possessed, for this information wasn’t widely known. In fact, many details about Maerlyn’s Rainbow weren’t widely known. But… the powers of each bend were known to Flagg. He knew that Maerlyn had created the orbs using the magic of the [**Prim**](https://darktower.fandom.com/wiki/Prim). 

For context, dear readers, the Prim is simple to understand - it is chaos. Primitive, radical chaos - a source from which all magic entities arose. Demons. Gods. Monsters. Oracles. Angels. Maerlyn wove the bends into this world to bring forth discord. He embodied the Prim within orbs of what was believed to be _unbreakable_ glass. But one must ask one’s self… what is chaos but to create the _unbreakable_ only for it to someday _break_? This was the whim of Maerlyn, after all. 

As mentioned, the Crimson King came into possession of six of these powerful objects. But what did each of them do?

We will begin with _Black 13_ \- the sphere that the Crimson King kept closest to his side. Black 13 was primarily used as a scrying device throughout the world, enabling the lord of the Outer Dark to spy upon his enemies. He also used Black 13 to travel through dark doorways in caves, across labyrinthine dungeons, and through the underworld itself. It was no wonder that the Crimson King favored Black 13 above all else - it was a host to nothing but pure evil and rumored to grant eternal life. 

The _Blue_ Bend contained the power to destroy magic. It was like a counterspell - a vacuum that absorbed enchantments. 

The _Yellow_ Bend enhanced physical strength in whomever should wield it. 

The _Lime_ Bend granted restoration from injury, expediting its Crimson master’s healing capabilities and enhancing his resistance to pain. 

The _Purple_ Bend controlled the weak willed, giving the Crimson King unyielding influence over the minds of others. 

And then… there was the _Orange_ Bend. The Orange Bend was the only sphere to be returned to Flagg for further study. It granted the Crimson King great power, but it was the only of the six that proved the most challenging to control. Inside of it was a sentient sort of energy, ruthless and destructive, but also insubordinate, or so the Crimson King had determined. 

For a time, it had proven useful to the King. It enabled him to mobilize into dark places, traveling into directions of not only space but _time_ which no mortal mind could fathom. But there were _incidents_ that concerned the Great Red Lord. The orb’s glass did not provide full containment or control over these _treacherous_ , _problematic…_

 _Lights_. 

Flagg the Hooded stared out from his tower’s highest window, then turned away. 

The Crimson King learned that the chaos of the magic bottled within the Orange Bend was boundless and, at times, capable of _escaping_ from its spherical prison. Thus far, the orb had wrought only _small_ havok upon the Red Lord’s orderly subjects, arresting swaths of them into stupefaction as the _Lights_ drained them of their life force. This did not bode well with the King. There was to be only _one_ with unquestionable power and it was not about to fall to the likes of a lesser bend of that insipid Wizard’s Rainbow. Even Black 13 knew its place. Then again, to the Crimson King’s relief, Black 13 had no intelligence. 

He ordered Flagg to secure a better way to control the Orange Bend. But how could one control It? How to control those…

 _Deadlights_. 

Flagg the Hooded now stood over his desk, the top of which was piled with half empty potion bottles, stacks of books, and vials of what could only be poisons to which there were no antidotes. Inquisitive, the wizard inspected the Orange Bend, eyeing the swirl of Its peach and coral hues within, knowing full well that the very thing _eyed him back_. Flagg had ideas... _theories…_ pertaining to this particularly troublesome orb. 

_Witchglass,_ he thought. _Witchglass is stronger than any enchantment I could easily bind to this sphere._ This was true, but in the back of Flagg’s mind he questioned if witchglass was stronger than the glass created by Maerlyn, himself.

On the subject of witchglass, this material was not easy to come by. It was found far to the southwest, deep in the ruins of a neglected, dilapidated temple - a place whose inhabitants were buried so deep beneath the dust that its name had been forgotten across the ages. This temple was just east of the Cyclopean mountains. And it was there within its ruins, long obliterated after a Great Burning took place, that the bones of the witches trapped inside of the fires had melted down to create _witchglass_. The rare material had to be dug up from the Dark Deep Earth, and that was exactly what Flagg’s obedient thralls were commanded to do. 

Theoretically, he mused, this was a powerful binding substance, strong enough to _maybe_ suppress Prim within a single container. _Maybe._ But on the other hand, there had been the risk that witchglass was perhaps _too_ powerful. Flagg could not expose the Orange Bend to witchglass and risk its potential destruction. No. _Testing must be done._ Studies. Experiments on lesser magical entities. 

_Faeries_. 

If one was to look out from that window - that very same window at which Flagg earlier stood - one would have seen what he’d been staring down upon. To the south of the tower spread a vast garden of flourishing, orange mums. Within those mums, faeries were born. Flagg cultivated them himself, using the energy of the Orange Bend. Little seeds of Prim magic. Little seeds of easily controllable chaos. This produced rows upon rows of mums, like a tangerine blanket leading away from the wizard’s tower. There, the flowers bloomed. The faeries were born small, easily plucked from their blossoms, and then they grew larger, only to be collared like animals. 

Forever enslaved at the mercy of one of the utmost _merciless_ dark wizards in the realm. 


	3. The Faeries

It had been a week since the faery named Dryst emerged from the apricot petals of her mum. Soon after, the flower wilted to a dull brown, rotted from its stem, and fell to the dirt - a treat for scavenging insects. All faeries are born fully developed; thick heads of hair, strong sets of sharp teeth, long limbs, and active sexual organs. However, faeries can vary in shapes, sizes, and color. Dryst’s hair was wild and white - a silvery crown of thick strands that stood straight up from her scalp. Her skin was a powdery sky blue, which wasn’t any rarer of a skin color for a faery than, say, fire engine red, deep purple, or a gradient of pinks and greens. 

Like all _fae folk_ \- which not only included faeries but also pixies, sighe, imps, boggarts, elves, and more - Dryst bore unique markings on her face. These markings were as white as her hair, etched across her cheekbones, down the bridge of her nose, and right on the ball of her chin. Because her blue skin was so pale, it was often difficult to distinguish Dryst’s fae markings. Some faeries had brilliant patterns kaleidoscoped across their faces in wild, bright colors that complimented the skin beneath. Yellows on indigos, pinks on blacks, reds on whites - the combinations were endless. 

Dryst’s eyes stared out from her head like two, wide, solid black pearls, tilted and blinking. Her wings were roughly the same color as her skin and their design was little more than like that of a bug’s - translucent, shimmering, and twitchy. This was her faery form. Though Dryst bloomed into the world the size of a thimble, she, like all faeries, grew to roughly the size of an adult human. As it was, in Dryst’s world, thumb sized faeries outside the blooms of a flower did not exist. [**Sighe**](https://darktower.fandom.com/wiki/Armaneeta) were thumb-sized, as were _pixies_ , but they did not qualify as _full fledged faeries_. They were simply _fae._

The thralls who worked the mum field welcomed Dryst into the world with a tiny collar fastened around her neck. The collar was designed to grow right along with her, never to be removed. The thralls gave Dryst no verbal explanation as they’d fitted her with it, for they could not speak. And, although they too served Flagg, the thralls were _not_ faeries. Thralls were simply husks of former mortals - reanimated, dead bodies with no agency. They had no ability to speak, nor did they make any sound at all, and to Dryst’s observations, there was likely not a single thought in their decomposed heads. 

The faeries, by contrast, were sentient, emotional beings - used for a variety of tasks. Flagg had them cooking, cleaning, and repairing broken things day and night. Faeries were naturals when it came to such undertakings, but this was little more than an added bonus to the true nature behind Flagg’s use for them. 

The wizard needed lab rats for his experiments.

And because Flagg often experimented with _magic_ on _magical things,_ the faeries were first in line to be tested upon. To Dryst’s fortune, her duty was simply to keep Flagg’s workshop clean and orderly. She tended mainly to the alchemy station, but the rest of the wizard’s lab often fell into disarray. Dryst was expected to stay on top of it all, otherwise Flagg would become angry. No one wanted the wizard angry, especially not the faeries. He personally saw to their births _and_ deaths. It was never a matter of _escaping_ death with Flagg - death, by his hand, was certain. It was a matter of whether or not a faery wanted a _painful_ death. With the dark wizard, all a faery could hope for was something _quick_. 

It was on Dryst’s 7th day of chores, and of her life in general, that she had the dreadful “privilege” to bear witness to Flagg’s inadvertent execution of one of her kin. It wasn’t quick and it certainly wasn’t painless. He had been experimenting on faeries with witchglass. Dryst didn’t understand what the substance was exactly, only that when Flagg locked Strombo, a male faery, in a box of clear witchglass, his strength quickly weakened. Strombo’s usual, vibrant indigo skin faded to a pale, sickly lavender. It was so pale that even _lavender_ was too colorful of a word to describe it. Perhaps more of an _ailing gray_. As the he-faery spent more and more time in the witchglass box, his voice went silent. When he did speak, which was only when he clawed at the glass begging for mercy, Strombo had gone hoarse. 

All the while, Dryst had been sweeping around a shelving unit of potions and various mixtures. She slowed in her task, staring apologetically at Strombo with pity in her black eyes. Flagg took notice of the silence - the sound of her swishing broom had slowed to a stop - and spied the pale, blue faery staring in horror at her kin trapped within the witchglass. 

“Get on with your errand!” snapped the hooded wizard. Sharp and deep, his voice serpentine'd through Dryst’s innocent ears with a jarring rasp. 

With a nod, she said nothing and continued to sweep at piles of dust, hair, bone fragments, broken vials, and all sorts of odds and ends that made their way to the stone floor. 

“He feels pain, you know…” Flagg informed Dryst with a giddily sadistic smirk. “But it doesn’t matter. This won’t kill him. It merely _contains_ him.” 

But he was wrong. Strombo curled up on the floor, his wings wilted against his back, and began to seize. Furious, the wizard’s face narrowed. “Fucking hell!” he hollered. “Not _this_ again! I’ve _redesigned_ the construct!” Making no effort to rescue his test subject, Flagg instead threw a tantrum, sweeping an arm across a shelf, sending all sorts of things flying. Then he looked over the witchglass box, as if performing a much too late inspection. 

Meanwhile, blood trickled from Strombo’s nose, ears, and mouth. He stared at Dryst with a pleading look. Her heart twisted in on itself as she kept her head down, knowing that any attempt to help him would have led to her own suffering and death. The weight of Dryst’s collar suddenly felt heavier than usual. Within the next twenty minutes, Strombo had eventually died. 

“If this kills a _faery_ …” grumbled Flagg, “...then…” he clenched his teeth, searching his desk as his voice trailed off. 

Dryst wanted to run - to fly out the window - but she knew it was no use. The collars were enchanted. Any faery that fled would be dead within seconds, for as the collars were enchanted to grow, they were also enchanted to shrink. Upon any attempt to escape, they shrunk powerfully fast, crushing a faery’s neck in an instant. Typically that was the most painless death a faery could hope for after all hope was lost. Hopelessness gave some faeries the wherewithal to flee just to trigger a death quicker than whatever Flagg had in store. It was _hope_ that kept the others still alive, only to be killed in far worse ways. 

And in the end, the wizard did not care if a faery died. He could always grow another one. 

* * *

Flagg withdrew a rusty, old key from beneath a stack of tomes on his desk. With it, he unlocked the center drawer of the desk. From the center drawer, the wizard withdrew another key, only this one was quite strange. It was black and shaped like a corkscrew. Dryst wasn’t entirely sure that it _was_ a key until Flagg knelt down and twisted it into a keyhole on the top of an otherwise inconspicuous, obsidian trunk. The dark corners of this workshop apparently hid many things and that trunk had been one of them. 

The wizard opened the trunk and an orange glow illuminated the sinister contours of his face. Flagg held his hands over the trunk, producing small bolts of magic. These bolts appeared magnetized toward the surface of whatever glowed from within the trunk. Slowly, _gingerly,_ he stood up, balancing a strange, _floating_ sphere between his white, pointed fingers. The orb was quite orange, like a small sun floating between the wizard’s palms. Flagg noticed that Dryst had, once again, stopped sweeping. Rather than barking at the faery like before, he turned his grimace into a grin and asked, “Do you realize what this is that I hold in my grasp?” 

Dryst shook her head. 

Flagg carefully walked over to his desk, still balancing the sphere in a trap of magic between his hands. “This is chaos. I hold _chaos_ within my grasp. It bore the flowers from which you came. However, it can do ... _so much more!_ ” 

“It is of the Prim?” asked Dryst. The faery intuitively knew of the Prim. All fae did. It was a knowledge that accompanied them at birth - like a born instinct. 

“Oh _yes_ !” nodded Flagg. “ _IT_ ...is of the Prim. And the work I do here…” he glanced down at Strombo’s body encased behind the witchglass, “...I do it all to secure the Lord of the Outer Dark’s power. His power over all of us, including this troublesome little Bend O’ the Bow.” He paused. “The _Orange_ Bend.” 

Dryst remained quiet, but nodded. She didn’t wish to know any more. The faery simply wanted to clean up the remainder of Flagg’s mess and leave. She began to move her broom back and forth in an effort to hurry. But Dryst could have sworn that as soon as she went back to work, _something_ began to whisper to her. 

_Kill him…_ It said. 

And then the voice was gone.


	4. The Whispers

The days carried on in a repetitive manner for Dryst. She tended to Flagg’s workshop, all the while bearing witness to ceaseless, failed experiments. Bitterfox, Gembloom, Midnight, Tigerdrop - all faeries. All dead, with credit to the witchglass and its lethal, corrupted properties. Dryst forced herself to tolerate Flagg’s outbursts as she kept her head down and kept her broom moving. The blue faery no longer flinched the second he began to rage, smashing potion bottles and launching leather-bound tomes against the wall. 

All the while, something whispered to Dryst every single day - namely as Flagg had been distracted by his own failures, consumed by his own tantrums. 

_Kill him…_

It said this every time. The first time she’d heard it, Dryst wasn’t clear on the words, or if it had even happened at all. Perhaps she’d imagined it. 

_Kill him._

With each whisper, she knew this was no delusion. _Something_ spoke to the faery - and what a tall order it had issued! 

_Kill him._

Kill who? Flagg? He was one of the most powerful wizards in the realm. Dryst ignored the command and thought to herself, “ _Keep dreaming. No one kills Flagg the Hooded.”_ In hindsight, she realized that the pleas to kill Flagg stopped once she’d asserted this particular thought. Whatever whispered to her had also been _listening._

Then, days later, It whispered a new message: _Release me._

Dryst pondered this latest request a bit more than the original. It simply seemed more plausible to release a captive than to kill the captor. And as she pondered these words, the faery became more and more convinced that the whispers were coming from that black trunk hidden in the shadows of the workshop. 

_Release me._

The trunk called to her, or perhaps whatever primeval entity dwelled within called to her. It beckoned Dryst to hear Its voice which hissed so clearly in her head. Each day It grew louder, more melodic, like a song. Its voice became less like a whisper and more like a hymn. The faery admittedly began to feel a connection to The Thing In The Trunk. It was a prisoner, like her. It was magic, like her. And It was to become the eventual subject of some Great Experiment, whether Flagg was prepared to damage It or not, _just like her._

_Release me._

Dryst answered It back with her mind. _“I don’t have the key.”_

The whispers went quiet for a few days. 

* * *

Four days of silence had passed. Although, _Flagg_ wasn’t silent. His victims in the witchglass weren’t entirely silent, either. Regardless, Dryst’s whispers hadn’t said a word in that time. The faery’s black eyes were always fixed on the trunk. 

_“What would I do with that sphere if I had it?”_ she thought. _“I can’t escape this place, not with my life…”_

As if The Thing In The Trunk had heard Dryst, a new whisper emerged: _Await the next death, then do a sweep._

 _“What else would I be doing other than sweeping?”_ thought the faery. 

The next and final poor soul that Dryst watched die inside of the witchglass was Toadtree, a rather lanky he-faery. Toadtree went down faster than most of the others. He was dead within minutes. Right on cue, Flagg flew into a fury and began his usual whirlwind of anger, wildly demolishing his own workshop like a spoiled child. The wizard wasn’t even using his own hands anymore, instead he released gusts of temperamental magic across the room, knocking tools about, sending books flapping and metalware crashing. 

_Do a sweep…_

The cryptic message suddenly made sense to Dryst. She remembered the rusty old key that Flagg kept under the tomes stacked on his desk. In all of the chaos, the faery hastily moved the broom, sweeping her way over to the desk. Dryst shoved the tomes onto the floor, which simply sent them on their way, joining the other publications Flagg had nearly destroyed in his rage. 

The wizard took no notice. 

To Dryst’s delight, the key was there on the desk, plain as day. With it, she quickly unlocked the center drawer, grabbed the corkscrew key from within, and twisted it down into the top of the black, whispering trunk. Lifting the lid, the sphere’s orange glow washed over Dryst like a warm bath of light. There was something oddly reassuring about It. 

The faery lifted the sphere in her hands, gripping the round curvature of the glowing orb. Now, the Orange Bend had no magic trunk to contain It, no witchglass to suffocate It, and no wizarding hands to counter Its power. Dryst stared at the sphere, almost hypnotized by the aberrant swirls of light from its center. In that instant, a jolt of that same energy pierced out from the Orange Bend like a whip of lightning and struck the collar around her neck. 

The collar disintegrated to dust. 

“ **What in the fucking Nine Hells do you think you’re doing?!** ” boomed the voice of Flagg. The dark wizard’s face twisted in on itself with vexation. 

Dryst froze, still clutching the sphere. 

The commotion around Flagg seemed to freeze as well. Items that had been whirling through the air now hung there, suspended in animation. The books, vials, and alchemical substances froze so still that the wide eyed, lifeless corpse of Toadtree seemed more animated by comparison. 

The room was quiet. 

Flagg lifted his hands to ready a spell. This was to be a most ruthless hex - a spell of _petrification_. He intended to turn Dryst to stone, then take a hammer to her until nothing was left but dust. Oh, she would be quite awake and quite aware the entire time, and that was the most _delicious_ part of the spell. Flagg smiled sharply. 

The sphere decreed another message, this time much louder than a whisper. “FLY!” It shouted. 

Quite audibly, It said this. Flagg heard Its voice, which gave him less than a second of _pause_ \- just _enough_ pause to save Dryst’s life. And before the wizard released his wicked spell, the faery twitched and fluttered her wings, lifting herself and the Orange Bend from the ground, speeding with all the haste of a hornet. 

To slow him even more, the Orange Bend projected a beam of light into Flagg’s eyes, wrenching him off his feet and straight into the air like a balloon over a sudden current. Without a second to spare, Dryst flew out the window of the great tower and soared over the field of faeries, unable to save a single one of the poor wretches. She hugged the Orange Bend tightly to her chest as she flew far, _far_ away from that awful place. Meanwhile, Flagg still hovered in the air as if he were dead in the mind and numb in the body. There the wizard remained for the next 24 hours, levitating, his eyes rolled up into his skull. 

Had Flagg been any other human in this world… he would have been dead. 


	5. The Spellbook

Dryst felt as if she’d been fluttering through the Endless Forest for hours. Truth be told, it had been an hour and twenty minutes before her wings would no longer carry her. Still clutching the Orange Bend to her chest, she settled to her feet and ran. To the faery’s disadvantage, the farther she ran, the denser the foliage of the Endless Forest became, wholly obstructing her view. Dryst must have run in circles for some time before feeling as hopeless as ever.

It was dusk. The sky above darkened with the arrival of an autumn sunset. The blue faery felt a chill wash over her as the sunlight receded below the horizon. Unfortunately, Dryst’s clothing wasn’t much for keeping warm. All she’d been wearing were servants’ rags. No shoes, not that faeries were designed to wear such things, but even _shoes_ would have been a nice buffer between her bare, delicate feet and the cold mud. 

Regardless, Dryst mustered a reserve of stubbornness and continued to run. The effort seemed futile, however. Fae such as her weren’t built for running - just flight and magic. She soon learned this as her hips ached, knees popped, and quickly ran out of breath. Such a short time this faery had been alive and she was learning the hard lessons, the _hard_ _way_. 

As Dryst continued onward, she wondered how long it would be until Flagg would set out after her. Had he already begun? Or would he send his thralls? Did Flagg even care if _one lousy faery_ had escaped? 

No. Of course Flagg would _not_ have cared if just one faery had escaped. Faeries were about as important to him as _flies_ . But he likely cared a whole _hell_ of a lot about the missing bend of Maerlyn’s Rainbow. Dryst had stolen a weapon belonging to the Crimson King - Flagg’s master. And because of _that_ … the Crimson King would be _very_ angry with his wizard servant. The King may even have Flagg tortured or killed. Both, most likely. Dryst paused in thought, fantasizing about a dead Flagg the Hooded. All her troubles would be over and she could finally relax. 

But that was a fantasy. 

Dryst’s troubles were just beginning. Flagg wasn’t going to let some rotten, insipid _faery_ abscond with one of the most powerful weapons that the Lord of the Outer Dark wanted at his disposal. She knew the wizard would be after her. She could still feel his eyes on her, _somehow_ . He was watching her from _somewhere_ . Maybe the bastard still floated dead-eyed in the top of his tower, but any dark sorcerer worth his salt, in spite of a temporary bout of suspended animation, still had some shred of his magic-mindedness about him. Flagg had some way of tracking Dryst, even from his suspended state. Or so the faery _thought_ as she worked herself into a running, breathless panic. 

By that point, Dryst’s running had slowed to a saunter. She cursed herself. Lugging the orb in her arms, her bare feet made wet sounds against the earth as she left behind small tracks in the mud. The thought crossed the faery’s mind to abandon the Orange Bend. Let Flagg find it and leave her be. But before Dryst could continue to talk herself into depositing the sphere right there in the middle of the Endless Forest, a large, dark figure startled her. 

Dryst froze. 

He was a surly fellow, bald and missing an eye. His face was carved up in scars like a dog that had been one too many fights. A human, by the faery’s observation. _Mortal_.

“What do we have here?” The man spoke in a gruff voice, pointing his hunting knife square at Dryst’s powder blue nose. “Some kinda… _goblin_?” 

Two other voices piped up from behind. 

“That ain’t no goblin,” one of them rasped. 

Dryst turned. Both of the men behind her were posed in the same manner as the bald one - knives out, eyeballing her up and down. The one who denied that she was a goblin was covered in just as many facial scars as the _first_ bandit - if not more had you counted the ones around his neck! He was thin and tall with a large Adam’s apple. His eyes bugged out of his head like a toad. The bandit grinned wickedly. His lips were thin and wide over his rotted, black teeth. When he spoke, his voice rasped, all nasally, like the sort of voice a rattlesnake would have if it ever had the hankering for a conversation. 

Then the third bandit spoke. “Maybe it's an elf?” he asked. The filthy bastard stood beside the tall, thin one. This third bandit was slack-jawed, squat, and stupid in the eyes. 

“Aye,” rasped the tall one. 

“Whatever in the Nine Hells she is,” said the first bandit - the big, bald one, “she’s carrying a pretty large bauble there. Shiny, too. I say we take it off her hands!” He took a step toward Dryst.

The other two laughed, closing in from behind. “Then we take off _her hands_!” added the stupid one. 

“Bet those pretty, blue hands will be worth a handsome coin!” The tall one readied his knife. “Those necromancers and witch doctors are always buying up elfy parts! Elfy and bloody, that’s how they want it!” 

Dryst wanted to fly away but her body was exhausted. She could barely lift a wing, much less two. “Stay back,” she warned, weakly. And that was exactly how the faery felt - _weak._ Why did this world make her feel so incredibly fragile? _Vulnerable_ . All the power of the Prim, somehow diminished to _this._ Then the afterthought occurred to Dryst: That was Flagg’s doing. 

The three bandits threw their heads back and howled with laughter. Dryst continued to stand frozen like a rabbit trapped in a corner. She had no further threats to offer. The men moved slowly toward her, almost in a cautious sort of way because they still weren’t entirely sure what Dryst _was._ These men were broken and stupid, no doubt, but they had seen the dangers of this world - the strange, dark specimens that danced unpredictably across the landscape, intervening with mortals and bending to the whims of sorcerers. Oh yes. They’ve looked upward and even their simple minds have, on occasion, contemplated the Beams stretching overhead. They knew that in spite of their own mortality, in spite of their own mundane realities, that those constructs reached southbound to a dark Center Of All - something wicked and magical, something that held the fabric of their wretched, robbing, and raping lives together. As a faery is born with instincts regarding the Prim, a man is born with instincts regarding his own undoing. 

And so, the men approached this blue, winged unknown creature, slowly. _Ever_ so slowly. Each step bred an idea as to how to skin her or gut her in the most efficient way. 

However, in that moment the Orange Bend in Dryst’s hands erupted with light. So fast, it was. She had nearly forgotten what It did to Flagg until she was suddenly enveloped by a wild, tangerine light that lifted the three blindsided men off their feet. Jaws dropped, limbs limp, with nothing but the whites of their eyes aglow, the bandits now hovered in the air, arrested by the light of the Orange Bend. One of them - the big, bald one - had even pissed himself. His trousers darkened all the way down, dripping urine from the contours of his muddy, leather boots. The orb gave off a sound, a powerful reverberation, like the distorted blaring of a deep horn, devoid of all brassiness, only thrumming out the low, meaty vibrations that rumbled through Dryst’s chest. 

The Orange Bend dimmed. 

The three men remained suspended in the air, like flies in a web. Dryst had a feeling that no force on this planet could ever bring them down. It would be _here_ that they remained until their bowels gave, their guts dried out, and they died of exposure. She could not determine if they were _aware_ , but the sheer viciousness of this mysteriously sinister Bend O’ the Bow led the faery to conclude that a _mercy_ like unawareness was unlikely. 

* * *

After Dryst had collected herself, gaining a clearer understanding of what had just happened, she reconsidered the idea of abandoning the Orange Bend. This world was unfamiliar, and thus far every human she’d met had tried to kill her. The only protection standing between Dryst and certain death had been the very sphere in her hands. 

“ _Look..._ ” It whispered. A soft glow beamed into the direction of the tall bandit’s boots dangling far above the ground. The orb hadn’t said much since Dryst had fled the tower. But now, in the calm of the night, it instructed the blue faery to investigate a patch of grass just below the floating man. 

Moving closer, she spied _something_. 

On the ground, there was a book. It must have fallen from his satchel. It was a curious sort of book, bound in leather and decorated with fanciful, hand carved knotwork. Perhaps the knotwork _meant_ something, but to Dryst it looked like nonsense. Likely it had been a pattern created from artistic embellishment and nothing more. The faery gave no further thought to it. 

“What is this?” muttered Dryst. She picked up the book. There was something familiar about the weight and feel of it. She began to flip through the book. There was something familiar about the stale aroma of its pages. As Dryst’s eyes glanced over the writings within, she realized that this was no ordinary book - it was a magical tome. A _spellbook_. A spellbook much like the ones that Flagg had studied. 

In spite of her young age, and her overall unfamiliarity with the world at large, Dryst, like all fae, could _read_. The Prim saw to that. Words were nothing more than _spellings,_ and spellings were nothing more than _spells…_

And spells were _magic._

The fae were creatures of magic, so all things magical were bred directly into them. This included the art of reading. Humans did not invent reading and writing, nonetheless they falsely claimed the two as their own. Nothing could have been further from the truth. The practice existed long before mortals and it will continue long after their extinction. Of _this_ , Dryst was certain. 

The tome held an abundance of recipes, incantations, and rituals. Scrawled erratically along the margins in an entirely different ink were footnotes, likely belonging to the book’s true owner. And splattered along a section of center pages that stuck together like a clump of wet, muddy leaves, was fresh blood. Also likely belonging to the book’s true owner. 

That tall, toad-eyed bandit with the rattlesnake voice was _no_ mage. He must have attacked a spellcaster and stolen the book. _Typical_. Dryst concluded that by the looks of where the blood had collected, the mage had been concentrating on a specific entry before he or she was attacked. Intrigued, the blue faery pulled the sticky, red pages apart, all while cradling the Orange Bend. Dryst’s curiosity led her eyes the rest of the way. 

This particular entry cited a pernicious ritual in horrific detail. It also cited a precise location as to where to _perform_ the ritual. “You poor, bleeding bastard…” Dryst muttered as she read on. The blood on the pages was still warm. And so, the faery pondered a moment - she wondered if the mage was still in that location. But should she trust a mortal? 

Dryst frowned. _No. No I should not._

On the other hand…

The injured mage - if still alive - may be at a disadvantage. And Dryst still had the Orange Bend! Oh yes. She _was_ in dire need of food and perhaps some warmer clothing. Besides, the mage likely wanted their book returned. Dryst thought that maybe this scheme might work, yes. She was not entirely certain how self sufficient she could be with what minimal magic she could cast. Having wings was all well and good, but even they couldn’t carry her at length. No. She needed more resources. More help. Something… _anything_. Dryst’s thoughts drifted back to the orb as a source of protection. What if It decided to let her die? What if It wanted a new companion? She was at the mercy of the Orange Bend’s whim, yes? 

Dryst reached up and wrenched the hunting knife still gripped in the bandit’s hand. She felt a bit better. Now she had a weapon to wield of her own… just in case. The faery fastened the knife through a loop in her raggedy bottoms. Then she looked back at the book, thumbing through the remainder of cleaner pages for any additional information. Not much else was found aside from more footnotes. The faery had concluded that the footnotes were _strange_. Some rambled, others were nonsense. The handwriting grew bigger, more wild at varying points, then died back down to a small, hastened script. Dryst wondered if the mage had gone mad. 

All the more reason to arm herself with a knife.


	6. The Summoning of Cthun

_I, the GREAT Ulador, a wizard who studies the TODASH, have the Ritual below for summoning the GREAT demon, Cthun! This book was bestowed upon me by a succubus who visited me_ **[bloodstain]** _the night. OH HOW she ravaged my body, but left me with my life! In all of her exquisiteness, her succulence, her aching beauty, this she-demon had the clever knowledge that I sought. I would have cut her throat, but no need. She procured the book for me after she’d had her way with me. She took me to a dark vacuous space between Nothing and Nowhere, and there she showed me a dying barghest. The goblinoid wolfcreature folded on its side, utterly incapacitated by the grip of a slow death. And this succubus tore at the barghest’s hairy belly with her long knife-y fingers, spilling its entrails across the blackness of the void. And among_ **[bloodstain]** _bloody mess, stuck between the barghest’s spongy intestines was THIS VERY BOOK! The spellbook already came with spells, but no one - AND I MEAN NO ONE - knows how to summon this creature of_ **[bloodstain]** _TODASH but ME!_

 _The Ritual can only be done at the circle of the SEVEN stones! The Seven Stones that, if_ **[bloodstain]** _view them through a simple spyglass, you will see the EIGHTH stone! It is the Eighth Stone that imprisons Cthun!!!_

_The circle of stones are located in a field in the south, just outside of the Endless Forest. NO ONE but a MASTER SORCERER should attempt this summoning!_

_Materials Required_

  * _Hair of a black dog_


  * Black hair of **[bloodstain]** human


  * A black beetle


  * Black (dark) earth


  * Black blood or sperm


  * Black ash


  * **[bloodstain]**


  * Pungent flesh of any mammal


  * Fragrant flowers


  * A burning flame


  * Mortar and pestle



  * _Prepare ingredients by crushing and mixing them using the mortar and pestle._


  * Ignite any flame on the altar inside of the stones.


  * Recite the incantation only after having done steps 1 and 2 and visualized Cthun in the mind’s eye.



_Incantation_

_Cthun, Across the Abyss!_

_Cthun, Across space and_ **[bloodstain]**

_Cthun, hear my voice!_

_Cthun, Who serves the Greater One!_

_Cthun, Who serves the Devourer of Worlds!_

_Cthun, hear my voice!_

**[bloodstain],** _Lesser god of Madness!_

_Cthun, The winged helmet!_

_Cthun, hear my voice!_

_Cthun, Be released from the Stone!_

_Cthun, You are free!_

_Cthun, hear my_ **[bloodstain]**

  * _Place the crushed materials into the flame until all that is left is ash._



_Footnote: This Ritual, as it stands, is yet UNTRIED! But! I will write further on its results after my first attempt. I will_ **[bloodstain][bloodstain][bloodstain]**

* * *

Dryst followed the directions to the mage’s location, searching for a field just outside of the Endless Forest. Ulador, the mage in question, was quite precise. His words, indeed, led the faery to a circle of stones with an altar in their center. However, there was a notation that confused Dryst. It read that there were seven visible stones, the eighth of which could only be seen through a spyglass. But upon arrival, Dryst counted eight visible stones, one of which appeared damaged. It looked as though it was hollow from within and _something_ burst forth from its center. 

This discovery had Dryst wondering if she’d arrived at the wrong circle of stones. However, the faery quickly abandoned her query at the sight of the dead mage at the foot of the altar. Dryst had, _indeed_ , tracked down the correct location of the ancient summoning ritual. She held the Orange Bend to her chest and investigated the area. The stones were massive structures, jutting out of the earth like clawed, black fingers. Standing within their center, Dryst feared they might close in on her, like one might crush a bug in their palm. The Orange Bend glowed, brightening its radiance as Dryst neared the altar to get a closer look at Ulador. 

The spellcaster was indeed a man and his injuries did not appear typical. Deep, bloody lacerations decorated his face and neck like macabre tiger stripes. Half of Ulador’s face was missing, as if something swiped it off in one, powerfully life-ending blow. Dryst glanced down at her hunting knife she’d stolen from the bandit. Its clean, blood-free blade had been a much overlooked clue. Whatever killed the mage, it was by no human effort. The bandits must have arrived at this place shortly after Ulador died, then ransacked his corpse. 

The Orange Bend began to vibrate. It hummed in Dryst’s arms, almost as though it were growling in a deeply unnatural sort of way. The sound grew louder. The vibrations grew wickedly powerful, drumming against Dryst’s chest and arms until they were overcome with tingling and shivers. She could no longer keep a grip on It. Dropping the orb at the foot of the altar, the faery suddenly heard a different set of vibrations coming from the distance. It was the sound of something _gargantuan_ stomping against the ground. Trees that lined the edge of the Endless Forest bent and jostled with each shake of the earth. Before Dryst had the chance to hide, a figure as big as those very monstrous stones had burst from the vegetation. Roosting birds launched themselves into the air, scattering and screeching in terror as they wildly disappeared against the sky. 

The Orange Bend now hummed with all the volume of war drums. The creature tromping over trees, knocking and breaking them at the centers of their trunks, emerged within full eyeview. 

To Dryst’s horror, the first of what she saw were a set of eyes as red as burning coals. Then she spied two, massive, leathery wings covered in veins and filth. The wings were attached to a wide, meaty body as black as witch’s excrement. The creature’s ears were pointed, flat, and wide, jutting out from its broad, demonic head - a head capped with some kind of bone plating. 

_Cthun._

__

_([Cthun](https://stephenking.fandom.com/wiki/Cthun), from "N")_

Ulador, to his misfortune, must have _succeeded_ in summoning the creature on his first try. The fool brought terror to this world, plucking it directly from the darkest depths of the Todash. That lumbering terror now plodded forward, its beady, hateful eyes locked onto Dryst, gnashing rows of jagged, blood-stained teeth. In Cthun’s left hand, he gripped a dead human, their bones crushed, and a limb chewed off. A small, bloody arm bobbled up and down from the left corner of Cthun’s crooked mouth. He gnawed hungrily, panting out gossamers of drool from his soiled, left cheek. Dryst nearly blacked out from fright. What had Ulador _done_ ? The mage was truly mad to have brought this ... _thing_... here. 

The Orange Bend’s volume rose to deafening levels. Dryst dropped to her knees, clapping her hands over her pointed ears. Regardless, through her palms she managed to hear a sharp, sudden _CRACK_ \- the sound of glass splitting under intense pressure. A swell of apricot light flowed around her, more than what the orb had ever before released. Glancing at the Orange Bend, Dryst realized It was empty. Just an empty glass ball, still spherical but cracked. 

The swell of light billowed like smoke, ballooning across the field toward Cthun. It churned and undulated, rising higher and higher until there was no clear sight of the winged monster. It… it was like a fog. A _mist._

Then, Dryst heard an awful sound. It was a _scream_ , but it was unlike any scream she’d ever heard. One couldn’t live under the eye of Flagg and not hear a diverse selection of screams. She knew what she heard - but _this_ _scream!_ It was guttural. _Inhuman_. How could a scream sound so fiendish and unfeeling, but so utterly _agonized_ at the same time? Whatever the sound was, it brimmed with terror - drowning within its own _fear_. The scream carried across the field and the Endless Forest in one, long, rattling breath - an alien protestation to _something_ that had overpowered it. 

A wind swirled around Dryst. It swirled between the stones. Then, it carried that _scream_ with it, pulling the abhorrent cry across the field, _toward the eighth stone_. The eighth, broken stone bottled the hideous noise up inside of itself, drawing its own rubble from the ground, replacing its damage with smooth, black masonry. The scream was now inside of the eighth stone, muffled - _trapped_. As it carried on, its volume dwindled… quieter and softer… not as though it had begun to calm down, but more as if it were, in some kind of otherworldly fashion, being dragged away to somewhere _unseen_. As the screams faded, the eighth stone gradually vanished from sight. 

Dryst knelt there, wondering if she’d even taken a single breath. Then she breathed. Her head rushed with blood. Her vision blurred momentarily, then refocused. Looking around, the faery was still contained by a sea of titian mist, now surrounded by only seven stones. But something _else_ was with the faery. Something new, yet familiar. Dryst looked up. A tall figure stood over her. 

It stood in the middle of the orange light with a pale, white face, dark eyes, and flowing red hair. 


	7. Legion

At first, Dryst believed _Flagg_ had found her. The advancing figure was clearly a man and clearly had a malevolent look about him. With a shaking hand, she readied her knife, pointing it at him as he advanced. As the man stepped closer into view, the surrounding misty, orange light began to retreat, as if it were being vacuumed up into his spine. 

“What do you plan to do with _that_ , little fae?” The stranger effortlessly flicked his wrist. An unseen force knocked Dryst’s knife to the ground. 

As the area cleared, the faery was able to get a better look at the stranger. The man was no mortal, upon closer inspection. He was tall, long in the limbs, wearing a white-collared black tunic with red trim. His black trousers clinged snugly to his long, lean legs as his calves disappeared inside very tall, ornate riding boots. The stranger’s hair flowed past his waist in thick, red tresses of overlapping, crimson ringlets. Dryst wondered if the tips of his ears were pointed, but they were so hidden far beneath that hair - who could ever tell?

The stranger’s forearms and hands were wrapped and gloved in fanciful leathers. In fact, his entire outfit was impishly fanciful, as if he were modestly dressed like a king’s harlequin. His face was pale - as white as a sheet - and his lips were blood red, as though he were a stylishly _handsome_ Snow White. Then Dryst noticed his eyes. They glowed. Eyes of yellow, glowing like those of the _wolf_ on its hunt. Eyes.. accentuated by the sharp arches of his black eyebrows, hugging the darkened eye sockets which surrounded those two, glowing orbs. They had no whites, only red sclera stretching from corner to corner. And how he locked his gaze onto Dryst with those eyes - with pupils as slitted as a snake’s. 

“P-Please…” stuttered the faery. 

He grinned. And it was when he grinned that Dryst noticed the most curious thing of all - two, curved, red markings which started at the corners of his mouth and symmetrically traced up his cheeks, past his brow. Nevermind the possibility of pointed ears - Dryst recognized _fae markings_ when she saw them. As presumed, this man was no mortal. He was of the Prim. And he appeared to be some kind of _aberration_ connected to the Orange Bend.

“Who are you?” Dryst asked. 

The ageless, red headed stranger bowed ever so slightly. His voice was smooth, ethereal… _deep._ “We are Legion,” he answered. “We are many.” He paused. “I am one.”

“ _We?_ ” 

He nodded. 

“Who is _we?_ ” 

Legion, as he called himself, moved ever so _slightly_ closer to Dryst, his eyes still locked hard, but his expression simply that of soft curiosity. “I am one. We are many. I’ve ... _grown_ … over time spent in this world. My captors - there were three of them. The old Sorcerer of chaos who ripped me from the Todash. The foolish man-wizard who stole me from him. And the Great Red Spider King who held me prisoner until I made him angry. With each of these captors, I grew. I absorbed just a little bit of each of them. Their powers. Their desires. Their _fears._ I evolved, no longer fit to remain a prisoner. I am _Legion…_ an amalgam of those who have failed to control me.”

“But how did you come to be?”

Legion stepped closer. Dryst tried to step back, but his right hand quickly, though gently, grabbed her by the wrist. “It was _you,_ little fae. You freed me. You brought me to this altar. The veil is thin here. Can’t you hear it?” Legion closed his eyes and raised an index finger, as though he was listening to a classical piece which only he could hear. Judging by the intense expression on his face, it must have sounded like a symphony in his head. Then he stopped, opened his eyes, and looked to Dryst for confirmation.

She heard nothing. Shaking her head, the faery replied, “I thought you came from the _orb_ …” 

“That reminds me,” nodded Legion. He snapped his fingers and the cracked sphere rose from the ground, floating over to him like a great, glass balloon. Legion eyed the floating orb as his outstretched hand conducted its movement remotely. He slowly turned the orb over and around as though he were performing an inspection. “I _did_ and I _did not_ come from this wretched thing.” 

“But how are you walking around?” asked Dryst. 

Legion smirked. “I have always been able to _walk around_ \- just not as freely as _this_. It was typically a command… a _summon_. As you’ve seen, even _belligerent_ _fools_ can summon the most powerful of Todash Gods. Then back into the crystal ball I went, whether I liked it or not!” He let go of Dryst’s wrist, but paused a moment to lightly stroke her cheek with the edge of his gloved finger. “You do realize that there are other worlds out there, yes?” Legion’s thumb lingered a moment on Dryst’s chin. Then he moved his hand away and performed a motion as if he were slowly squeezing something. As he did this, the magical, glass orb shrunk to the size of a half dollar. Legion plucked it from the air and dropped it into a front pocket along his tunic. To where that pocket led, Dryst could only guess. The stranger’s outfit wasn’t exactly grounded in physics, nor was his whole _being_. The faery presumed the glass orb dropped into a vacuum, somewhere, and no longer existed in this spacetime. And when Legion should have need of it again, he’d conjure the blasted thing from whatever nihility to which it was sent. 

“Other worlds?”

Legion nodded. “Maerlyn knew this. That’s _how_ he ripped me from the Todash, harvesting my entropy. He tore through the veil between worlds. The Spider King knows this as well. All the more reason he enslaved me for so many years. Using me like a _vehicle._ But I grew ever more powerful while in his keep. Oh, how it enraged him.” He paused, then beamed a smile. “It was _delicious._ ” 

Legion stepped forward and reached for Dryst’s hand. He tugged it gently, inspecting her blue skin, almost with admiration - with _pride_. “You’re a faery.” 

“Yes,” nodded Dryst. “I-I am.” 

“Flagg did not _create_ you. Remember that. He only planted you in the earth. The source of the seed was much greater than Flagg’s pathetic excuse for _magic_.” 

“The Prim,” said Dryst. “I know of it. I come from the Prim.”

“We _all_ come from the Prim, little fae,” grinned Legion. “But _you…_ ” he sighed, “...you and your kind came directly from _entropy_.” 

“From you?” asked the faery. 

“Yes,” said Legion. “By no means am I a Father of Faeries. More like a fungus shedding spores. It’s an uglier representation, but accurate. Accurate because it is absurd. And absurdity is anything but neat and orderly. Absurdity is beautiful, true, but it is also slovenly, chaotic, ... _untidy_.” He pulled Dryst close, lightly touching his red lips to her forehead. In a whisper, Legion added, “But yes, this is why you look into my Lights and are unaffected. You are _part_ of the Lights. All faeries are.” 

Dryst was suddenly overcome with fear. She knew what Legion was. It was on the tip of her tongue. She dared not say it, but she couldn’t contain the words as they came tumbling out of her pale, blue lips. “You are a Greater Fae.” Dryst hastily backed away from the tall, painted stranger. 

“I don’t question your trepidation, little fae,” smiled Legion, strolling forward, shortening the distance between them. “You were born wise, as all faeries should be. What is the rule for encounters with Greater Fae?”

“Ask nothing of them,” answered Dryst, as though she were reciting the Beatitudes for Catholic school. “Accept nothing from them. Or they shall be your undoing…”

“These stones,” Legion gestured to the seven black fingers jutting up from the ground, then pointed to Ulador’s corpse. “That dead mage had asked too much of fae magic. The fool brought about a Greater Fae.”

“Cthun…” Dryst voice trailed. 

“Yes,” nodded Legion. “The Idiot God. The Greater Fae of lesser evils. _Weak_ , really.”

“He didn’t look so weak to me.”

“Oh, but he was. He went back into his stone, squalling like a babe. Appearances aren’t everything until you take a closer look.” Legion licked his ruby lips. “Cthun was quite hungry, too. I had to get rid of him. If I let him traipse about, then he’d devour all of the best meat!” 

It was on that note that Dryst _did_ take a closer look at Legion. His yellow and red snake eyes locked with hers. They were brilliant. Painfully glowing and hypnotic. He didn’t blink once. Legion simply stood there, grinning at the blue faery. His teeth were _sharp_. Why hadn’t Dryst noticed this before? All faeries had sharp teeth, sure. Sharp ...to describe Legion’s teeth in such a way was an understatement. They were keen-edged, almost thorny _...shark-like._ Something about his teeth also seemed _fluid,_ if that was the only way to describe them. It was as if they were currently in a state of retraction, like the claws of a cat. Dryst realized that his gums moved ever so subtly along the tops of his teeth. 

“You’re a predator,” she declared. 

“Carnivorous?” Legion clarified. “I am. And now that I am free to devour _this_ world--”

“What of Flagg?” Dryst interrupted. “He will continue to hunt you.”

Legion threw his head back. His laughter rolled out of him like a deep, slow wave. “The Dark Man is a fool. Though, you’re not wrong, little fae. He is such a fool that it is quite likely he will _not_ leave things be. As far as Flagg knows, I’m still in _your_ possession.”

“So he hunts me!” she cried. 

Legion shushed Dryst softly and leaned forward, so closely that the air escaping his lips tickled her face. “Tell you what, little fae - it was lovely to make your acquaintance. Miss Dryst, was it? But if the Dark Man and the Spider King scare you so, then I’ll simply be on my way, since that is what you _wish_.”

“But!--”

“Good fortune to you, Dryst, the blue faery in the circle of the Seven Stones.” Legion kissed Dryst ever so gently on the forehead. His lips were soft, like flower petals. A calm washed over Dryst, like a drug. As if his kiss had _tranquilized_ her for a brief moment. As she stood there, stupefied, she watched as Legion dissipated back into the glowing, orange mist. And then… back it all went into the cracked, glass orb, which now floated off into the dark distance, a light growing smaller against the night’s horizon. 

  
  
  



	8. Kuna

A month had passed. 

In that time, Dryst traveled the roads south through the Barony of New Canaan. She’d eventually come upon a settlement known as _Kuna,_ stopping off there for much needed respite. Dryst learned a great deal about herself before arriving to Kuna, in fact. She’d discovered her knack for _illusion magic_. This was her only magical ability, but it came in handy when push came to shove - or so she’d discovered. At first, the faery only thought to disguise herself in Ulador’s robes. She’d taken the time to wash the bloodstains from it, which surprisingly was easy for a faery to do with the help of a nearby stream. Faeries were quite adept to both causing stains… and removing them. Unfortunately, the robes didn’t hide those wings of hers, nor that blue skin, or those pointed ears. 

Dryst didn’t have offensive magic - just that hunting knife. She no longer carried the Orange Bend, a hell of a weapon as it was, so she had to rely on her own resolve. It was a stroke of luck when Dryst’s panic set in as she passed a traveler just outside the village walls of Kuna. He happened by, just on the outskirts of the settlement. Her robes tricked him at first glance, but as the man stared harder, he saw Dryst’s wings and that inhuman face of hers, and that was when his temperament changed. 

Now understand that he wasn’t a violent man, but he was awfully loud, pointing and crying out that _there was a god damned blue gremlin_ casing the traveling path. That man turned on his heel and raced back to the gates of Kuna, yelping for a guard’s assistance. Dryst had to act fast. The need for a better disguise hadn’t so fiercely presented itself before - and perhaps that was to her disadvantage. Then again, like all things born of chaos, the pressing need to act with haste might have worked to her advantage. Who could know for sure? 

The faery acted on _instinct_ , in fact. Without a second guess, Dryst ran both of her hands over her face and head in a slow, backward motion - as if she’d just resurfaced from a pool of water. She had changed her appearance in one, broad stroke. Easy as pie. From head to toe, Dryst was able to transform herself into a human. She was still the same general height and shape, but all of the crucial details had changed. Ears. Eyes. Skin color. She even made her wings _unseen._

Dryst’s blue skin changed to a coffee hue and her white, wild hair was now short, black, and curly - tight to the scalp in an ironic _pixie_ cut. Her black, inhuman eyes changed into chocolate, brown irises surrounded by convincingly white sclerae. Dryst appeared to be a woman somewhere in her 20’s or 30’s. A mage. Robed and traveling on foot. When the frantic man returned with a guardsman in tow - on horseback, no less - he balked at the sight of Dryst. The man even _asked her_ , “Excuse me, miss? Did you see a… well… a _blue_ creature go by?” 

“A _blue_ creature?” she chuckled, lifting a thick, attractively arched eyebrow. 

The guardsman rolled his eyes at the man, then dismounted his horse. He took a brief half-look around as if he were humoring the man. 

“It _was_ here!” the man insisted. 

The guardsman sighed. “How much did you have to drink back at the Old Habit?” 

“I’m quite sober!” The man crossed his arms. 

Dryst held back a smirk, as though she’d just played quite a devilish trick. Faeries were always amused by their own tricks. She hadn’t experienced that amusement before. It felt… _natural_. “Well,” she interrupted the two, “if you gentlemen will excuse me…”

“Wait a moment,” said the guardsman, holding up a hand. “Where are you headed, Miss…?”

The name came to her as she spied the orange and red leaves decorating the trees which lined the path. “Autumn.” Dryst smiled warmly. 

“Miss Autumn,” the guard nodded. “Where are you headed?” 

“Passing through. To the town up ahead.”

“Stopping off in Kuna?” asked the guardsman. 

Dryst nodded. He was asking too many questions now. She began to worry. 

“Would you like a ride back?” he offered.

Relief. Dryst felt the tension melt away as quickly as it had appeared. “Why, thank you. Yes, I would.” 

Her disguise had worked. 

* * *

Under the alias of “Autumn”, Dryst spent up to a month in Kuna. During her stay, she earned a modest sum of coin pretending to be a palm reader for the local townsfolk. The innkeep never questioned Dryst because she paid him handsomely - and well in advance. But during that time spent in Kuna, Dryst had the suspicion that _something_ was after her. 

A mysterious _darkness_ seemed to creep over the settlement. It began so subtly at first that Dryst paid no mind. Small bouts of violence erupted in obvious locations - the tavern (Old Habit), the streets, and the prison. But when families began turning on one another - siblings attacking siblings, parents neglecting their children, and children running off into the dead of night, never to be seen again - Dryst found this behavior _strange_ , even for mortals. 

She suspected Flagg. It had to be him. The locals even knew of the wizard. His name had been muttered on the lips of angry drunks, stumbling about the Old Habit, pissing themselves lying down, lamenting their missing children and their broken lives. 

Even a priest spoke of Flagg at Kuna’s local town hall meeting. Dryst attended, out of morbid curiosity. If the wizard truly was terrorizing the settlement, she wanted to know what the locals planned to do. But the priest was no help, nor were the rest of the townspeople. They each spoke of things that Dryst did not understand. A brewing war… _slow mutants in the south_ … [John Farson](https://darktower.fandom.com/wiki/John_Farson), whoever the devil he was - likely another human who would have collared Dryst like an animal and beaten her bloody just for fun. Wasn’t that what most humans would have done to her? Isn’t that why she panicked and has since been clinging to this disguise she called “Autumn”? 

Those children never did return to their families. And dead bodies resurfaced in the strangest of places. Bits and pieces of them scattered on the outskirts, littering fields and clogging wells. It wasn’t long until the town fell to social unrest. Citizens marched in the streets, crying out to their town leader for justice. They fought and turned on one another like dogs. There was so much hatred and malevolence that clouded their better judgment. It was unnatural. It must have been Flagg. Dryst knew the wizard well in spite of her brief time in his captivity. He was puppeteering the people from afar, like an invisible monster on the wind, pulling invisible strings. Sooner or later these people would have discovered what Dryst truly was. They would drag her through the streets and blame her for their town’s sudden misfortune - a plague that arrived just as she did. 

The faery would have none of it. She would not let Flagg win. Why in the world he still pursued her was beyond Dryst. What importance was she to him? But that was it, wasn’t it? She was of no importance to him other than to exact vengeance. The Crimson King must have punished the wizard. The wizard must have blamed Dryst. 

No more. She had to leave. Dryst paid the innkeep one last time, packed up what minimal belongings she now carried, and promptly fled the forsaken town of Kuna. _And may the gods have mercy on that wretched place_ , she thought as she walked further southbound, down the traveling path. Dryst dared not look back. She feared if she did, she would see Flagg’s face in the stars, looking down at Kuna one final time before…

 _Smoke._

Dryst smelled the smoke of burning pyres as she walked. She never looked back, but she _knew._

She knew that the townsfolk had begun to set the place ablaze. 

  
  
  
  
  



	9. The Skin-Man and The Necromancers

Traveling through the realm of New Canaan, Dryst maintained her “Autumn” disguise. It was the damndest thing, though. The calamity that erupted in Kuna seemed to follow her all through her travels. Each time Dryst neared a town, she enchanted herself with the illusion of Autumn, stayed at an inn, then began to see spikes of the same civil unrest. Her stops in various towns and villages along the route became shorter and shorter. The faery kept her head low, hoping that this _curse,_ or whatever in the Nine Hells it was, would lift. Violence continued to brew, people continued to go missing. 

_(the Skin-Man, by Jae Lee)_

In one no-name village, there was talk of a _skin-man._ A local fisher woman filled Dryst in on the shady details as she was passing through for food. 

“Just like what happened in [Debaria](https://darktower.fandom.com/wiki/Debaria),” she told Dryst, “the Skin-Man has made his way north. Now he’s hunting _our_ folk.”

“What is a [Skin-Man](https://darktower.fandom.com/wiki/Skin-Men)?” Dryst asked. 

“Awful thing,” said the fisher woman. “Some sorta shape-changer. Walks like a man, but transforms into beasts. Eats folk. Drags ‘em off. Eats the children, too.” 

“Perhaps it’s a mad man running around in animal skins,” suggested Dryst.

“That’s what them gunslingers kept sayin’ happened in Debaria too,” said the fisher woman. She frowned. “Bullshit!” She spat. “It came up this way. Understand? Walked upright - right into town. Kept changing its face. But it had the same gait. Same unholy aura. Then it killed a whore - left her carcass hanging out the whorehouse window. The whoremaster too. It gutted him but there were no guts to be found. All chewed and swallowed. At night people saw things. Some kinda beast. Children insisting there were monsters under their beds taken seriously this time. Sometimes the thing was four legged like a bear, sometimes it had more legs - like god damn crawdad. Then it killed a man we’d thought gone missin. He didn’t. The Skin-Man took him when he was fishin. It dragged him into the river, did the ol’ death roll, drowned him, gnawed on him. He washed ashore not long ago. No funeral for him. Folk are scared. They burned the body.”

Dryst paid the woman for a pound of trout, thanked her, and promptly left town. 

The story of the Skin-Man seemed difficult to believe, even after all that Dryst had seen. Perhaps it was the way the tale was told - there was too much superstition attached to it. Too much of that urban legend feel. Dryst wondered how much of what the fisher woman said was fabricated. That was how people told ghost stories, wasn’t it? Each retelling became more gruesome than the last. But something definitely wasn’t right. It was as if these mortals were _under a spell._ Was it Flagg? Was it something else? A horrific thought occurred to Dryst…

Was it… _her?_

No. She shook the notion. It had to be Flagg. These mortals’ behaviors were so easy for him to puppeteer. The more Dryst thought logically… the easier it was for her to imagine Flagg enchanting one of his thralls to pose as this _Skin-Man_ and terrorize people. 

* * *

The next stop on Dryst’s journey was the great city of Gilead. She’d been growing world-weary from her long trek south. Her food source had also run concerningly low. Faeries survive well in the rich, dense wilds of woods, jungles, and forests. But, regrettably, the Endless Forest was too close to Flagg for comfort, and everywhere _else_ in this wretched world was a _wasteland._ Dryst had no other option but to make another pit stop. 

Gilead was the capital of New Canaan and had a population of around 10,000 mortals. The city was booming with trade and exports like fruits, milk, and textiles. There was a great, stone outer wall which offered fortification as well. Housed within that wall were some of the grandest designs Dryst’s eyes had ever seen. Monuments, buildings, and such were _tall_ \- taller than even old Flagg’s tower. When Dryst strolled in, she had to slow her pace just to look up and absorb the sights. 

Gilead was separated into West Town, Old Quarter, and Lower Town. The merchant district could be found in West Town, whereas Lower Town was the place to go for a night in a brothel. Indeed, the city seemed a vibrant place, bustling with technology, commerce, and humans that came in every variety. Dryst hoped that the mysterious stroke of darkness had stopped following her, for the simple fact that she could see herself happily settling here. 

It was in a few days’ time, after Dryst had rented a room at a cheap lodge just outside of Lower Town, that the _Necromancers_ arrived. Or so this was how the city folks referred to them - namely when they were _long_ out of earshot. The Necromancers also rented a room at the same Lower Town lodge, just across the hall from Dryst’s quarters. Of all the luck. 

Something else arrived with the Necromancers - outcroppings of civil unrest. It started similarly to the other towns, but much more gradual. Something about this one sat differently on Dryst’s mind as she began to witness the same, albeit measured, patterns. Talk of slow mutants was rampant. Talk of that same name Dryst had heard before - John Farson. Talk of militias. Talk of murders - poisonings. Talk of a brewing fight to come. It was, at this point, _all talk._ But the tone was certain. The people were distrustful. Dryst was ever vigilant and long abandoned any notion of settling in this place. _Two more nights,_ she thought. That was the plan. Then leave. 

The faery was still heavily disguised as Autumn, for there was no shortage of illusion magic within her. She was finishing a palm reading in her quarters. The woman - her client - thanked Dryst, kindly paid, then left. As she exited, Dryst’s door was momentarily ajar and the faery caught the sharp eye of one of the Necromancers across the hall. She couldn’t see his face very well under that _hood,_ for they were all hooded, but she somehow made isolated eye contact with the stranger. The Necromancer even flashed a grin, then slipped into his shared room. 

Dryst pursed her lips with worry, then stood to close her door behind the client. Curiosity seized the faery as soon as she reached for her doorknob, and so she emerged from her room and slowly crept across the hall. Dryst knelt to the floor and spied through the Necromancers’ keyhole. From what she _could_ see, the room was decorated with shadows, making it that much more difficult to see much through such a tiny hole. From Dryst’s limited observation, there were about five Necromancers, four of whom silently milled about, mumbling, reciting incoherent magic under their unidentifiable breath. Except for one. The one who spied Dryst in the hall. He, the fifth Necromancer, stood off in the distance, half faded into the shadows. From under his black hood an unrecognizably shadowed face stared _right back_ at Dryst, as if the two were staring at one another through a wide, open window. The faery gasped and quickly withdrew from the door. She hurried back into her room and locked it tight. 


	10. Abandoned By Angels

Night soon fell and Dryst was growing tired. She locked her bedroom door and jiggled the handle, just to be sure. Still in her Autumn disguise, the faery vigorously shook from head to toe, like a dog after a bath. Autumn’s facade sprinkled away, fragments of the illusion disappearing to the air. White haired and blue skinned, aching wings fanning with relief, Dryst disrobed and climbed into bed. 

The faery had collected a sum of pillows, piling them onto the bed in the shape of a crude circle. She climbed into the pillows’ center and curled up in a fetal sort of position. Dryst’s wings draped over the edge of the bed, limp with exhaustion. Had anyone spied downward upon her - from the ceiling - she appeared to sleep as a faery would have slept inside the embrace of a flower. 

Some hours went by - quiet and uninterrupted. Dryst dreamed. Her mind flipped through the channels of sleep. Such vivid images came in flashes, only settling for brief minutes. Sunsets and volcanic ash. Rose petals and gun barrels. Spiders. Boats. Children playing in the water. Dark hallways. Bright lights. Ursine animals. Reptilian animals. Towers. Fae. Yellow eyes and red hair...

The lock on the bedroom door began to jostle. With another twist and a soft click, the door slowly opened. 

Dryst slept soundly in spite of the noise outside in the streets of Gilead. Soldiers had been deployed for reasons not entirely understood by the faery. What citizens  _ were  _ out and about began to gather in clusters all around the great region. The humming of their anxious chatter grew. Regardless, the faery slept. And the four Necromancers who crept into her room did not wake her, for the spread of the unrest outside muted the sound of their movements. 

It wasn’t until a hand clasped over Dryst’s mouth, dragging her from her bed that she finally blinked her black eyes wide awake. Her screams muffled and each of her limbs grappled, the Necromancers seamlessly carried the faery out of her room, across the hall, into their quarters, and locked the door behind them. 

* * *

The fifth Necromancer awaited the other four, standing beside a makeshift stone slab. “Strap her down,” he instructed. 

“How much faery blood will be needed?” asked one of the four, struggling slightly with Dryst’s arm as she tried with all her might to fight him off. Meanwhile, the other three quietly strapped her legs and opposing arm. 

“All of it,” answered the fifth. He seemed to be in charge. Their  _ leader  _ as it was. 

“Then the door will open?” 

“The door is  _ already  _ open,” the leader corrected. Then he produced a rolled parchment from his pocket. “The  _ location  _ of the door on this map will be revealed. But  _ only if  _ there is enough blood, on  _ this  _ stone, at  _ this  _ hour, in  _ this  _ place.”

“In Gilead?” The Necromancer managed to strap down Dryst’s arm. In frustration, he backhanded her across the cheek. 

The leader stared at him a moment, unmoving. “In Gilead, yes. Just before it  _ falls.”  _

Dryst looked up at the leader, realizing he was the  _ one _ from earlier. The one who had seen her through the keyhole. She began to scream. 

“Gag her before she alerts the innkeep,” said the leader. “Lest we spill his blood and the blood of his family, too.”

One of the Necromancers obediently tied a heavy strip of fabric around Dryst’s thrashing head. Her wings draped over either side of the stone slab, flapping wildly, creating wafts of air that flowed through each Necromancer’s robes. One of the men grew frustrated and grabbed at Dryst’s left wing in an attempt to seize its movement. His leader dropped the parchment and firmly grabbed the man by his wrist. “Do not damage the faery. Her blood cannot be prematurely spilled by accident. Let the wings do as they do. She cannot escape.” 

The Necromancer let go of Dryst’s wing and stepped back. As the faery looked up, she saw the leader standing over her, gesturing wildly, his long sleeves of his black robe brushing over her face and body. He instructed the others to draw their blades and step back into position. The other four faithfully obeyed and stood in a circle around the stone slab, raising black daggers above their hooded heads. The ringleader continued chanting - it was in a strange language. Dryst did not recognize the words. They were old. Perhaps forgotten. Definitely real. Not gibberish. That much she could tell. But the syntax? It was lost on her. Whatever magic the lead Necromancer called upon this miserable night must have been darker and more ancient than Dryst could fathom. 

The sounds of chaos in the streets of Gilead grew in volume just outside the window.  _ Something  _ stormed the city. Whatever it was at the stone gates, this was the beginning of its invasion. Meanwhile, the ringleader’s voice chanted to a crescendo as the others had their daggers poised and ready to plunge. The leader raised both of his arms and shouted a strange, alien word, as if that was the cue, and Dryst screamed a muffled cry into her gag as she watched those daggers come down hard and fast. The faery squeezed her eyes shut, now clenching her sharp teeth to the gag. She screamed and screamed, hoping that this would soon be over. Let the nightmare end. Let the blades sink into her and  _ hopefully  _ end her quickly. 

But she felt nothing. No pain. No pressure, other than that of the straps around her arms and legs. Dryst opened her eyes. The plunging daggers had, indeed, descended, but an invisible force stopped them midway. She glanced up at the leader of the Necromancers who still stood above her, now grinning down at her, with his hood lowered, revealing long, lush, red hair. 

_ Legion.  _

He snapped his finger and all four of the Necromancers’ daggers turned their downpointed blades upward by 90 degrees, toward their hooded masters. He snapped his finger again. All four blades fiercely rammed into each Necromancers’ chest cavity, then out. Then  _ in.  _ Then  _ out.  _ And so on. Blood erupted throughout the room, like a geyser. It splashed the walls, the ceiling, and the floor. Splatters and splashes of blood covered Dryst from head, to wing, to toe. Legion swiped at her straps, cutting them loose with his own hand. He picked up the parchment he’d earlier dropped, flashed a smile at Dryst, and promptly vanished. The faery sat up alone, covered in blood. Four wicked men laid dead at her feet. 

The fighting in the streets of Gilead grew louder…

* * *

Fex hadn’t served long in the guard, but he knew that the violence that befell this cursed night was unlike any that he would ever see again on his watch. They stormed the great, stone wall. The slow mutants were coming.  _ Evil  _ was coming. Fex wasn’t a superstitious man, but he believed this in the pit of his very soul. Perhaps it was the terrifying  _ look  _ of the enemies who ransacked the streets. Their glowing, green skin. Their naked heads covered in tumors. Eyes missing. What few teeth they still had in their heads as sharp as a whaler’s knife. These foul creatures demolished the city and the folk of Gilead - the once peaceful faces of the people living in prosperity - now twisted in on themselves with madness and hopelessness. The citizens lost themselves in the street that night. Screaming into the pyres that burned and raged taller than the buildings. Some turned on one another, others turned on themselves. Some simply fled, abandoning their own children out of senseless fright. 

These were contributing factors to Fex’s sudden belief in unmitigated  _ evil.  _ Yes. But, what convinced him most of all that Gilead was  _ doomed to fall  _ was when he looked upward, into the sky. Fex saw, with own two accursed eyes, the majestic,  _ horrific,  _ sight of a winged woman, covered in blood, flying off into the unknown distance - away from the city. 

_ “If the angels are abandoning us,”  _ thought Fex,  _ “then Gilead is damned.”  _


	11. Body and Soul

Fleeing Gilead, Dryst spied a lone, uninhabited spring. It flowed along the side of a tall, remote bluff overlooking the vast expanse of New Canaan. Flying through the twilight, she soared across the dark, night time sky which blanketed overhead. From afar, Dryst noticed the sparkle of the stars in the spring’s rippling water. Nothing caught her attention more, for the faery wanted to clean the Necromancers’ blood from her body. As she fluttered down from the starlit sky, landing on the bank of the spring, the faery gazed into the quivering water that casted her reflection back, reverberating the vision of her face with the ripple of the stream. Blood had saturated every inch of Dryst’s white hair - her skin and clothing were dried and caked with rusty flakes of coagulation. She nearly cried at the sight of herself. 

Dryst was _done_ with mortals - done with their awful cities. Those awful people. She had no other choice than to search for another forest - one not so close to Flagg. But what good would it do? She was no fool. The faery knew that this land was at war with itself. She knew that Flagg was behind it, and likely still had a vendetta against her for stealing the Orange Bend. He will find her, eventually. He _will_ kill her. 

Dryst dropped her bloody robes to the lush, green grass and waded her naked, blue body into the water. Hopelessness overtook the faery’s knees as she numbly crouched lower into the water and cleaned the blood from her skin. Then that hopelessness started climbing up through her gut, grappling onto the insides of her chest. That sense of dread reached ever higher, choking her in the throat, sending hot waves through her cheeks and ears. Tears welled. Dryst wondered what was the point of this? Perhaps she should have stayed in Gilead and let the chaos destroy her right in the streets. She found no comfort anywhere in this land. The blue faery buried her face in her hands and quietly wept. As her tears dropped, one by one into the water, each drop emitted the sound of a small, sublime bell. _Plink, plink, plink._ Little echoes of bells lingered over the water, almost poetically, as Dryst cried and bathed. Even she saw the irony of a faery wallowing in her natural, wild habitat - lush vegetation and sparkling fresh water - while consumed by worry and grief. 

Something moved in the canopy of foliage surrounding the spring. Dryst paused, then splashed at the water a bit more as if to send a clear message that _she_ was occupying the area. If her noise didn’t ward anything off, then let it _invite_ the predator in. She was tired of running. 

The rustling stopped for a moment. Dryst waited a bit, then continued bathing. She kneeled deeper into the pool, fanned out her wings, and collected water along their broad, translucent surfaces. With a jump and a flutter, she bounced out of the water, sending large droplets flying into the night air. Dryst rather enjoyed that. It made her forget her worries for a moment. And so she did it again, even more playfully this time. And then she did it a third time, giggling to herself as she watched the water dance upward and splash back down. _This_ was what a faery was meant to do. Enjoy life. Playful and free. Perhaps her hopelessness became all too great, inspiring the faery to just _not give a shit_ anymore. 

But as quickly as her amusement began, it came to an abrupt end. Two yellow eyes watched Dryst from the surrounding shadows. Her giggling stopped. The faery gasped, then sunk deeper into the pool until nothing but her nose and eyes barely peeked out from the surface. 

The yellow eyes began to move and Legion emerged slowly, as naked as Dryst. _His_ expression of amusement outmatched hers. The redhead’s wicked eyes locked onto the blue faery. He waded into the pool, ankle deep and fully exposed. Legion made no attempt to hide the length of his genitalia, nor the smooth, ivory curvature of his legs and backside. “I’ve been following you for some time,” he confessed. Then he waded deeper, putting the water at his waist. 

Dryst stood a little taller, this time her head was fully out of the water. “Why? Why have you done this to me? That ritual. The blood. That stone table. _Why?”_

“I’ve been… _hungry._ I’ve spent this time fulfilling my need to consume. But this land is _empty._ It consumes itself.” He moved closer, just within arm’s reach of Dryst. “In my travels, I came across that ancient map, charted by the _Ageless Stranger_ himself. It may very well be my exit from this world.”

Dryst blinked her large, black eyes. Water trickled down the narrow bridge of her nose. “How did you find it? Maerlyn’s map.” 

“The map to the door was an unexpected surprise. I took it from an Elder in a distant town whose flesh tasted of terror. That was the first time I’d ever tasted fear as delicious as _his_. It was the first time I’d ever changed my corporeal shape from the one you see here.” 

Dryst thought a moment, remembering the tales told by the fisher woman. “This distant town…” she said, “...was it Debaria?”

Legion nodded. Then he affectionately touched Dryst’s cheek with the back of his hand. He traced its soft skin, leaving behind glowing, glittery tracks that disappeared against her flesh. He then traced his fingertips down to her chin and lifted it ever so softly, gently drawing the blue faery up out of the water into a full standing position. Legion leaned in and whispered against her left temple, “You know what I am, little faery. Go on. You’ve said it once before.” 

Dryst stared up at Legion, her smooth legs touched against his, as equally as smooth. She stammered a bit, all too aware now that the head of her pelvis lightly brushed against the firming shaft between his sculpted thighs. “You are a Greater Fae,” she whispered against the long red hair curtained between his neck and her shoulder. 

Legion nodded. “Those Necromancers entered a covenant with me.” He glided his fingers down Dryst’s chest, lightly brushing her nipple, then slid his hand warmly around her waist. Legion drew himself even closer until his spellbinding breath was at Dryst’s ear. “This entire _world_ has entered a covenant with me. That is why it is _dying.”_ He placed a tender kiss upon the faery’s neck. At the touch of his lips, Dryst drew a deep breath. Somewhere off in the far, dark distance, the commotion of the slow mutants overtaking Gilead hummed from miles away. Dryst’s breath slowed. Her ears drowned out the remaining sounds of mortals as her heartbeat rose in volume with the bloodrush of excitement. She reached a delicate hand to Legion’s able-bodied torso, examining his ghost-white musculature with the tips of her small fingers. He placed his hand over hers, guiding it up to where his _heart_ would have been had he ever been born with such a perishable thing. It was in that moment that Legion decided to shapeshift a heart beneath all that muscle and skin, just so Dryst could feel it beat against her warm palm. He pressed her closer. 

The sensation of their warm, wet skin pressing together encouraged the two to melt into an embrace. Legion touched his lips to Dryst’s, kissing her softly, his mouth whispering in between kisses. He professed his affections in fluent faespeak - a language only known to those born of the Prim. Legion’s whispers seductively persuaded her to kiss him back, as if he were the Devil acting out the temptation of Christ. 

He smelled of the Necromancers’ blood, as did Dryst. Something about the aroma consumed her and she pressed her mouth back into his. Legion cupped her jaw in his hands, slowly moving his mouth against Dryst’s, their tongues wrapped around one another - almost serpentine in their movements. She pulled her mouth away briefly to catch air, an interruption to which Legion pulled her back, nose to nose, his mouth breathing heavily against her open lips. He slid his hands over Dryst’s buttocks, firmly cupping each in his grip as he effortlessly lifted her from the water. Legion planted the faery over the firm, white protrusion of his cock, sliding into the warm, wet opening between her legs with some hesitancy - some _friction._ His breath against her mouth increased, and she could smell the flesh of mortals wafting out from somewhere deep and abyssal beyond the aberration of his throat. Dryst was _tight_ he thought, so tight against his organ that he hesitated a thrust. Legion resumed kissing the faery, this time uninterrupted, willing her mouth to salivate against his, knowingly triggering the release of a deep, wet, warmth that slickened his entry below. He continued whispering to her in faespeak, some words were of enchantments, others of obscenities. Perversions he wished from her, deviances that he wished to do to her. Then Legion paused, exhaling a soft, honeyed moan into Dryst’s ear as he steadily pumped his hips against the faery in a slow, rhythmic grind. 

Dryst was already tensing, already climaxing as Legion felt her abdomen tighten against his own. The faery’s pelvic floor squeezed along his erection, tugging it deeper with each penetrative motion. Dryst breathed faster, only whimpering just a bit, which excited Legion - hearing the faery’s futile effort to _hold back._ He pushed in even deeper, maintaining his rhythm, almost daring Dryst to stay quiet. Her legs squeezed his waist tighter and her voice erupted into an obediently libidinous moan. Legion laughed, almost a sinister sort of laugh, and fucked the faery much faster now, losing himself to her flesh, but he kept his slitted, yellow eyes fixed on the climactic expressions of her face. Dryst felt his penis flex in a different, more spasmodic, way than before. Legion came inside of her quite powerfully - almost unendingly. His orgasm seemed to last the ages as his eyes glowed brighter and his muscles tensed harder under the wet gleam of the spring water. Legion's breathing intensified with erotic, almost _feminine_ moaning. His volume grew shamelessly, with no intention of holding back. He continued pumping his cock into Dryst, resuming his softer kisses as he deliriously muttered sweet nothings in an abyssal language, like a euphoric _farewell_ song to the rougher, earlier phase of their intimacy. Legion's narrow hips slowed as his semen overflowed from within Dryst, trickling down his cock and across her powder blue thighs. The slowing pace of his gyrations matched the slackening of his ever-calming breath. Though, Legion continued to lovingly kiss the faery as his fingertips caressed the fleshy outline of her fanning wings.

Before Dryst’s bath in the spring had fully reached an end, the entity known as Legion, the inhabitant of the Orange Bend, had taken her - both body and soul - beneath the stars. 


	12. Illusions

As the rise of the morning sun spread across the bodies of Dryst and Legion, entwined in both limb and wing, the blue faery’s eyelids fluttered open. Legion was already awake, or perhaps he’d never actually slept, and he stared down at her with a knowing expression.

“Come with me, little faery,” he said. 

Dryst thought a moment on the specificity of what he meant by this invite. Then it occurred to her as she remembered what led to their reunion. The ritual. The stone table. The map to the door. “Come with you?” she asked. “To the door on Maerlyn’s map?” 

Legion nodded. 

“How far must we travel?” Dryst asked this wondering not only how tired she would be by the end of the journey, but how much  _ more  _ space could she put between herself and Flagg.

“To the ruined city of Dis,” answered Legion. “It is mostly uninhabited.” He clasped Dryst’s hands in his and added, “Let us leave this world together.”

Dryst was silent for a minute. She thought this proposal over before frowning just a little and asked a crucial follow up question. “Am I in danger?”

Legion smirked, perhaps all too aware of what she meant by the question, but chose to humor the vagueness of it. “You  _ still _ fear the dark wizard, after all?”

_ “No,”  _ sighed Dryst. “Well,  _ yes!” _ Frustrated, she sat up. “Am I in danger from you? If I agree to leave this rotten world with you… will that agreement seal my fate?” She paused. “Are  _ you _ to be my death?” 

Legion pondered her query. She was wise to be cautious. A very wise, little faery indeed. The universal rule still held true - never accept anything from a Greater Fae. No food. No drink. No covenants. But her clarity came one day too late. He stroked a fingertip along Dryst’s neckline, causing small goosebumps to rise across her skin. Pleased with himself, Legion smiled ever so subtly. “The time for such concerns has already passed, little faery.” 

“How do you mean?”

Legion’s usual, hard expression softened, as though he were masking a truth from Dryst that he did not yet want to reveal. “As I said, this world has bound itself to me ever since Maerlyn brought my chaos forth from the torn veil between here and the Todash. I rose from darkness, energized by the calamity of the Prim, and entered into the bend of the rainbow in exchange for the destruction that has been brewing. The destruction we are now witnessing across the land.” He sighed, brushing a hand over Dryst’s white, frizzy hair. “If you come with me, you  _ may  _ die. But, little faery, if you stay here, you  _ will  _ die.” Legion stood. With a simple gesture of one hand, he conjured his usual, black ensemble - boots and tunic and collar and all. 

“Illusion magic,” murmured Dryst. “I have mastered the same.” 

Legion raised an eyebrow. “Have you?” he asked, feigning intrigue. He’d already known this about the faery. Aside from his observations while following her, Legion had grown quite adept as tapping into emotions - tapping into minds and memories. His telepathy had bolstered in strength since the run-in with Cthun. “And to what extent?” he asked teasingly. “I’ve only witnessed a change in your skin and hair.” He laughed softly - so softly that it was more of a  _ giggle _ . “Well, and perhaps those wings. You have hidden them away quite well in the presence of mortals.” 

Dryst furrowed her bushy, white eyebrows. “And what  _ more  _ is there?” 

Legion pressed his ruby red lips together and shook his head, flashing a hint of pity in those cold, reptilian eyes. “Oh,” he sighed. “My sweet, little faery...” He snapped both of his fingers. In the blink of an eye, Legion’s arms transformed into long, spindly appendages covered with urticating hairs. His legs transformed just the same, while four more appendages sprouted from the sides of his body. Though his body was no longer humanoid - it was bug-like.  _ Segmented _ . He had a curvaceous thorax and an abdomen, the color of dark crimson like the scales of a red spitting cobra. Staring at Dryst through this hideous transformation was Legion’s face, which had morphed into an eight eyed, mandibled sphere. All eight pupils, dilated as wide as clocks, glowed  _ painfully _ yellow. 

A  _ spider.  _

_(by[Apelure](https://www.deviantart.com/apelure))_

Legion had transformed into a massive spider. He skittered around Dryst in a crab-like way. As large as he was, the creature was nimble on its pointed, sticky feet. The faery wasn’t generally afraid of spiders, but the shock of this sight caused her to scream. The monster’s pupils dilated even wider, glowing even brighter, as if her fear had triggered a burst of excitement. 

Dryst covered her eyes and dropped to her knees. “You’ve made your point!” she cried. “That is much more than I am capable of doing!” She wept. “Stop!” she begged. Her voice dropped to a tearful whisper. “What…  _ source…  _ of the Prim makes you  _ so powerful?”  _

The sound of the skittering monstrosity ceased. When Dryst uncovered her eyes, it appeared that Legion had reverted back to his humanoid form, fancy clothing and all. He knelt before Dryst and placed his hand to her cheek, shushing her cries. “ _ That _ I do not know for certain,” he answered softly. “Perhaps it’s because I am the  _ light  _ of the Prim, itself. The rawest of sources.” He took both of Dryst’s hands and stood. She blearily stood up along with him. Legion tilted his head affectionately and wiped away some of the faery’s tears. “The lights are dangerous to mortals,” he continued. “When they see them, they’re dead before they know it. Many  _ go Todash  _ when they look into my lights.” 

_ “Go  _ Todash?” Dryst asked with a sniff. 

Legion nodded. “You’ve not done this, yet. It is dangerous to mortals, but benign to fae. Going into the Todash for fae is a much different,  _ more powerful,  _ journey.” 

“Your lights are a doorway into the Todash?” 

“They are,” he nodded. “But _ I _ cannot travel back in such a way. Only mortals. This is why that  _ door  _ in the city of Dis is important to me. So that I can once again return to the Todash and hunt new worlds.” 

“Are you  _ so  _ hungry?” Dryst questioned. “ _ That  _ hungry?” 

Legion laughed.  _ “Always.”  _


	13. Belkin

Days passed as Legion and Dryst ventured southbound, toward the felled city of Dis. It was imperative that the two made haste, for it seemed the realm was in calamity all around them. However, somewhere in the dry, white sands of the Mohaine Desert, the blue faery and the Greater Fae found brief respite from it all. The Mohaine was a vast, empty place that stretched on and on, oftentimes causing unfamiliar mortal travelers to suffer breakdowns of the mind. For the likes of Dryst and Legion, there was no such risk. Regardless, spending too long within the blindingly white, all consuming flats of the Mohaine risked slowing their progress, which was the last thing Legion had wanted. He intended to reach Dis before the end of the next few days. Much to his chagrin, however, an unexpected interruption caused them a brief delay.

If one can recall, Legion had made a name for himself as the Skin-Man of Debaria. Debaria was a town just west of the Mohaine, bordering the end of its dry, sandy reach. And although the municipality had been traumatized by a handful of Legion’s horrors, the Debarians gathered at a town hall and had unanimously agreed to seek retribution for their missing kin. Or, at the very least, they wanted _protection_. That was not long after Legion had left the city - about a month back. In that time, Debaria had contracted the help of the gunslingers. This wasn’t the first time they’d had this problem - the gunslingers were all too familiar with Debaria’s hauntings. The townsfolk were hopeful that these pistol packing heroes would rid them of their ongoing Skin-Man problem once and for all. 

Perhaps with _natural_ Skin-Men this would have been feasible. They did exist as a race and sub-breed all their own. Many gunslingers over the course of history had successfully put a bullet or two through a Skin-Man’s stilted brain. But no gunslinger had ever faced the challenges with the likes of Legion - certainly not the abominations he could conjure. So it is worth noting that _lesser men_ held an extreme disadvantage with Legion. Yes. Worth noting, indeed. In the end, there was no sign of any Skin-Man or Skin-Folk in Debaria and so the gunslingers left after a week, claiming that they needed to get back to Gilead, knowing well that war was coming. 

But the Debarians weren’t convinced that their Skin-Man was gone, or if he _had_ left… they weren’t entirely convinced he’d stay away. One must understand how shaken these folks were after so many weeks of discovering dead bodies in the water system and sightings of freakish, hungry shapes lumbering against the night horizon. Many citizens had seen the pantheon of faces that Legion wore, including his very own pale skinned, red headed, _Fae King_ sort of facade. They _knew_ who - or what - to look out for. But the question loomed… with the gunslingers _gone,_ who would fight such a monster?

In a short time, their prayers were answered - or so they’d desperately believed. A _paladin_ smoothly rode into town on a Cyclopean Mountain saddle horse - an animal sporting a dusky, grullo coat and a flowing mane of ivory. The paladin, himself, was dressed in a long, tan trench, heavy riding pants, tall brown riding boots, and a chestnut shirt with black trim. He wore a matching beret to keep the sun from his piercing, blue eyes. The stranger called himself _Belkin._

__

Belkin, smooth talking as ever, told the Debarians that he’d see to their Skin-Man problem in exchange for free room and board. 

And free meals.

And free drinks.

And free women.

Now, these seemed the words of a swindler, but Belkin did seem like a tough, capable man. He was no gunslinger, but he knew a bit of magic, a bit of sword play, and he could even swing a pistol - but _nothing like a gunslinger._ In fact, the magic he knew was nothing compared to that of a mage and the swordplay he knew was little more than fencing. But he knew if he’d put on a reasonable enough display of power for these poor, simple idiots, they’d believe in his abilities every bit as much as he wanted them to. Debaria agreed to his terms. 

Belkin vowed to be the town’s _Number One Skin-Man hunter,_ exterminating the creatures before they even set foot in town, for as long as the town complied with his needs. What Belkin _didn’t_ tell the townsfolk was that he was convinced there either never was a Skin-Man, or the thing was long gone. So he stuck to his plan to milk Debaria for all it was worth - eating, drinking, and fucking more than his fair share. No one dared complain, because they were too worried to lose their _only_ protection. Those rotten gunslingers hightailed it back to Gilead, so what other option was there? 

In the few instances that someone _did_ have the audacity to question Belkin, the paladin had no reservations about threatening to leave. He threatened abandonment perhaps twice and that was all it took to keep the Debarians in their place. His threats weren’t simple, either. They _catastrophized_ an already catastrophic reality for the townspeople. _Oh your Skin-Man is comin back!_ Belkin would conjure unpleasant possibilities and dangle them like ornamented threats over everyone’s heads. _And who knows if he hasn’t copulated with a Skin-Lady? He’s coming back and he’s bringing his brood with him!_

They let him stay. Just in case.

Then came that fateful day the town watch gathered their usual news from nomadic traders and wandering priests - news that a strange red headed man, accompanied by a blue, winged she-creature, was crossing the sands of the Mohaine. They were headed close to the direction of Debaria. The two unnatural creatures were spotted south of Gilead, likely spooked from the arrival of the gunslingers. The last known point of their location was near the beam of Aslan, the lion, shared with Garuda, the eagle. 

Belkin made a weak attempt to persuade the Debarians to think nothing of the news, but the town Elders eventually grew stern with the paladin. They threatened to withhold his amenities until he fulfilled his end of the bargain - and they meant it. If he wasn’t going to do his duty then the town would be better off without the burden of his appetite. And so, quite bitterly, Belkin set off across the Mohaine in search of the red haired Skin-Man and his blue, winged pet. 

As instructed, he was _not_ to return without their heads. 


	14. The Dragon's Grave

The sun glared off the hard, white, sandy rocks of the Mohaine. Dryst and Legion walked onward. 

Legion mumbled, his red eyes squinting in the sun. “He has already been here, you know…” 

“Who?” asked Dryst.

“The dark wizard. Flagg. He has been in this place. I can smell his scent - very distinct. It smells of murk, something cold and wet, like the mildew that grows between the dank stones of a dungeon cell.” 

Horrified, Dryst gasped, “Is he _still here?!”_

Legion shook his head.

“Perhaps,” said the blue faery, “he joined the mortals’ battle to the north.” 

Legion said nothing to confirm or deny her theory. The two continued their trek. It wasn’t until a far off, dark silhouette appeared ahead of the blazing horizon that Dryst stopped dead in her tracks. She pointed. “Look!” she cried out in horror, convinced that Flagg the Hooded had waited for them at the edge of the Mohaine. Dryst fluttered her wings, lifting herself from the ground. 

Legion quickly grabbed the faery by the ankle as she flapped in the air. “Don’t fret,” he said calmly. 

“It’s _me_ he wants!” shouted Dryst as she shook her leg to wriggle her ankle free from his grasp. “I must leave!” 

Legion slowly pulled the faery down, grounding her to the white sands. He knelt before her and lovingly held her waist with two, firm hands. The Greater Fae looked up at Dryst with wicked determination in his unholy, snakelike eyes. “I am the only thing standing between you and Flagg. If you leave my side, then he _will_ succeed in destroying you.” Legion stood, then smirked as he nodded to the figure in the distance. With speed, it advanced closer, and Dryst soon realized that whomever it was - they were on horseback. 

“Besides,” added Legion, still smirking, “ _that_ is not Flagg.” 

The rider, who had been known in Debaria as Belkin, was now within shouting distance. He called out, “You will go no further!” 

“Is that so?” replied Legion. Unlike Belkin, he spoke at a normal volume. Like a phantom, his voice floated _clear-as-crystal_ across the hot, sandy winds. 

“It is!” answered the paladin. Belkin reached for the sword strapped across his shoulders. Unsheathing the weapon, he pointed the blade at the two advancing fae. Belkin then kicked his heels against the horse’s ribs and charged. “I’ll have your heads!” he shouted. 

“Fool thinks himself a knight,” sneered Legion. He raised a black eyebrow at Dryst. “Let’s give him what he wants.” 

The ground began to shake and Legion’s body grew. His pale skin and red hair shed from his bones like a bloody peel. From within emerged a large, scaled winged beast - as massive as a house. Its snout was long and doglike, each nostril snorted out short blasts of fire. Ribbons of smoke billowed from the corners of its hanging jaw - a jaw entrenched with rows of knifelike teeth. 

A dragon. Legion had shapeshifted into a gargantuan, fire breathing dragon. 

_(Tim Ross faces a dragon in "Wind Through The Keyhole")_

Belkin’s eyes widened with horror. The paladin yelled to his horse, tugging at the reins to turn and flee. Unfortunately, the creature wasn’t swift enough. With a powerful swipe from a large, red claw, Legion knocked Belkin clean from his saddle, sending the paladin skidding across the sharp rocks of the desert flats. The horse whinnied and sped away, the sight of which seized Dryst with an idea - and so she flew in pursuit of the animal. 

Belkin rolled over to his back, bleeding from skinned ribs and cuts to his face. He groaned from the pain of a broken arm after failing to extend the limb against the ground beneath him. Belkin gritted his teeth as his arm burned from wrist to shoulder. He looked up, the sky was serene for a moment. All he saw against its clear, blue canvas was the broad beam of Aslan. This did not last long, however. A new vision entered into view as the gaping, salivating maw of a dragon came crashing down around him, teeth and all.

Legion intended to eat the paladin, and in the end… he did. But not before Belkin managed to get in one, last _deep_ jab with his sword - straight through the dragon’s fleshy palate. The pain sent the monster - the Great Shapeshifting, Firebreathing, Lightbearing Fae King - into a wild frenzy as the very real, very overwhelming, surge of pain rocketed through his massive skull. Legion gulped the paladin down his expansive throat, sprouting additional teeth along the insides of his cheeks and esophagus, tearing and crushing Belkin as they pushed him down deeper into a hungry void. All the while, the Greater Fae flew upward, thrashing in the air, taking no care as to which direction he launched his sizely form. The dragon crashed straight into the beam of Aslan, breaking it at the center. The sound of such [erupted](https://darktower.fandom.com/wiki/Beam-Quake) violently across the realm like a great, deafening thunderclap. The crack zigzagged in both directions along the beam, and there was no telling how many miles it would travel until it would stop. 

When Legion came back down from the sky, he crashed into the sands of the Mohaine, upending swaths of rock and sand, displacing the hard earth beneath his wide body. All around him, Legion had created a deep [pit](https://darktower.fandom.com/wiki/Dragon_Grave) in the land, a crater so big that it would indefinitely reroute all travel through this place - there was no quick way around the chasm he had caused. 

After all was said and done, the Greater Fae lost consciousness, albeit briefly. He had drained himself of much raw energy. It wasn’t until Legion heard the voice of Dryst echoing down from above the crater, calling out his name, urging him to wake up. By that point, Legion had reverted to his humanoid form, just a speck of a thing, dwarfed by the magnitude of the pit that enveloped him. After he floated back up to the surface, there stood Dryst holding the reins of Belkin’s beautiful horse. 

“She’s calm now,” said Dryst, having discovered she had a way with animals. “I have named her Penelope.” 


	15. Good Faeries and Bad Faeries

_(from The book of "Bad Faeries" by Brian Froud)_

Dryst and Legion headed south at dawn, both of them riding atop the broad, dusky back of Penelope. The blue faery held the reins up front as her red headed companion hugged her waist from behind. As they trotted along the alkali flats, Legion seemed to know the stories of the towns they had passed. 

“The Lady of Waydon...,” he nodded to a great castle in the western distance, “...she decapitated a prince during a royal meal.”

“Why?”

“He killed her father.” 

Dryst sighed. “Are _all_ mortals so violent?”

“Deliciously so,” grinned Legion. “They make _such_ easy prey because of it, too.”

“Why is that?”

“Violence is bred from hatred. From _fear._ I can’t understand how, but fear makes mortals stupid. Slow. Easy. And for some reason… they just _taste_ better.” 

The two eventually veered away from civilization and traversed the wastelands toward the city of Dis. All the while, Legion seemed to be adverse to going any closer to the cities of the west. Spying Waydon in the far distance was the closest they had come, and after it was long out of eyesight, the Greater Fae repeatedly instructed Dryst to keep Penelope on a straight and narrow path - _away_ from the west. Dryst found his behavior strange - suspicious even. And as they traveled, she spied from her peripheral the Greater Fae’s serpent eyes locked onto the sight of another of those _beams_ stretching overhead in the far distance. It was much like the beam of Aslan, only not cracked by the great brute force of a dragon’s form. This beam was intact and quite far away, yet the glimmer of fear in Legion’s eyes was all too obvious to ignore. Dryst suspected that it was not the _cities_ to the west that he wanted to avoid - _it was that beam._

“Look,” said Dryst, “it is another overhead pillar - just like the one you cracked.” Was she overstepping her bounds with this? Curiosity got the better of the faery. “Should you like to take a swing at that one, too?”

Legion frowned. “No.” His answer was sharp and quiet. 

“What’s the matter?” asked Dryst. “Why do you stare at it so?”

Legion’s grip around her waist tightened, but not affectionately. “Not another word, little fae.” 

Dryst was not fearful of Legion, in spite of his many terrifying qualities. He had affection for her. That much she could tell. “Why not?” she dared to ask. “You are a Greater Fae. And you are afraid of that beam?” 

Legion drew a heavy breath through his nose and exhaled. He pressed his left temple to Dryst’s right temple and firmly whispered into her ear. “Fine, if you insist to know. To the north… _that_ beam is of the Bear. Shardik. I do not fear him. He is a great guardian, yes, but he is sick. He is dying. A rampaging, broken machine. Shardik is, and always was, _weak._ But to the south…” He paused. Legion’s breathing stopped somewhere in the middle of his throat, as if he’d just choked on a thought. “Nevermind what guards the beam to the south. I won’t speak of him.”

“Him?” asked Dryst. “And the southern guardian is not the bear?” 

As angry as he was, the Greater Fae turned his head away and yelled, “I won’t speak of him!” as if he had no intention of yelling directly into Dryst’s ear. 

The blue faery reached back, stroking her blue fingers along the ivory skin of Legion’s neck. “Calm down,” she soothed. She felt the tension in his muscles relax. He pressed his head against hers once again - the red, flowy length of his hair softly draped over her right shoulder. 

“He is old,” Legion continued, his tone sounding persuaded - almost defeated - as if he’d wanted to confide these fears to someone but never could allow himself. “He is stupid,” he continued. “I hope that one day, _he_ chokes and dies on the cosmos and his massive body _floats_ into the void to be devoured by endlessness, itself.” 

“Who is he?” asked Dryst. “What is he? Is he like Shardik?” 

“No. He is much more powerful. Shardik is a machine. Maturin, however…”

“Maturin?” 

“Yes. The turtle of the beam. He is not a machine. He is something else. Celestial. Overcrowding the darkness from which I came. Threatening my very existence ever since we both came into being by the hand of Gan.” 

“He threatened you?”

“Many times, little fae. He saw into my future - he should not have done that. I cannot even see my destiny that far ahead or what lies beyond. But he can and he abused that power. He told me that he will see an end to my life. I’d never given him a second thought until he made such threats. Such prophecies. Such bullshit. Maturin is a manipulator. He may be of Order and All Good Things… but that does not mean he is ethical.”

“And you _are_ ethical?”

“I am ethical enough to acknowledge that my ethics are lacking. And I am logical enough to acknowledge that I follow a natural order of things. Predator and prey. Greater and lesser. Mortal and fae. I know my place. I have always known my place. I am superior, but I am not Gan. I am a hunter, but I am not a murderer. I am a manipulator, but I do not parade around like a benevolent _god_ as I do it. I have always been true to my nature. I eat. I consume. I hunger. I tire. This was the way Gan made me and I have never pretended otherwise.” 

Dryst never did bring up the subject of Maturin again. There was hatred and _fear_ in Legion’s voice as he spoke of the turtle. The subject of the southern beam guardian had put him in a quiet, albeit foul, mood for the duration of the day. The blue faery reconciled that they were leaving this world behind, so it was best to leave behind unpleasant conversations such as this, too. But did Dryst regret asking about the beam guardian, overall? No. She did not. It was in this moment she had learned the most about Legion - more than she could have learned that fateful night in the spring as they engaged in coitus. But that was the way of things, wasn’t it? Some of the most intimate acts are merely _performances._

Night came. The two of them spotted a cave not but halfway to the entrance to Dis. Rather than press on, they took up shelter for the evening, as it was impressively warm for a cave. Dryst curled up on her robes, half wishing she’d been sleeping in a Great Forest rather than the wastelands. As if Legion had detected her thoughts, the tall red headed man curled up beside her, his body was warm and enveloping. 

“We will be off this world soon,” he promised in a whisper. 

“I miss nature,” confessed Dryst. “Flowerbeds. Animals. Trees.” 

Legion looked down at her with fondness, which was not an expression he held for most things. Contempt, hatred, malice, trickery, and a giddy sense of destruction - _these_ were the faces of the Greater Fae. But here in the dark, alone, with only a lesser fae to keep him company, Legion’s devilish browline relaxed and his sharp eyes softened. He looked into Dryst’s black eyes and said, “You know that I love you?” 

She nodded. “I’m still alive.” A cruel reality, but a reality nonetheless. _Love_ was a matter of life or death with this particular Greater Fae. And let it be known that should he ever love again, it would be rare and almost guaranteed to be destructive in the end. 

“My love for you makes sense, you know.”

“Does it?” asked Dryst. 

“Flagg brought you into this world using the Orange Bend. You are a part of me.” He leaned down and ever so gently kissed the faery on her blue lips, taking the time to cradle her cheek in his hand. There were no lies in his otherwise wicked eyes. And why should there be? Legion was a being obsessed with itself - _a being in love with a fragment of itself._

The two once again coupled, not too unlike the night in the spring. Clothing slipped off, skin touched skin, and ultimately their pelvises locked together in an erotic, side-swaying motion. The copulation of the two was not just sexual intercourse in the most mortal of senses. It was, quite literally, the reunification of Prim energy - the reassembly of broken chaos. And chaos sought pieces of itself where they could be found, make no mistake of that. Chaos is like mercury, each scattered droplet quickly rolling back to its centralized whole, almost as if it were magnetized. And in that moment, Legion and Dryst were magnetized. Dryst the droplet and Legion the many - the _whole._ He fucked the little faery raw that night, until she moaned and cried his name, for she was crying out the name of herself. The greater picture of who she was and where she came from. Legion fucked the little faery into the night, into the daylight, until the two of them exchanged not only primal urges but thoughts and behaviors - abilities and actions. 

Dryst knew, deep down, that she was changing. Her mind had unlocked from this union - perhaps from every minute she spent with Legion. She felt less weak than she did the day she was born from the orange mum. Dryst felt a power growing within her that might have always been there, dormant and silenced. 

“I can be anything you wish me to be,” Legion whispered against her panting lips. “I can please you in any way you desire.” And to himself, he thought… _I can end you in the snap of a finger. But why should I?_

And as Dryst’s mind wandered through images of her own desires, Legion transformed into each of them, be they his lips between her thighs or her lips along his cock. It was remarkable when he had the ability to duplicate himself, fucking her doubly - the blue faery sandwiched between two Legions moving in tandem. Was one of them false? Were both of them real? All four of their hands glided over her body - they _felt_ real, as did their tongues, searching every nerve around Dryst’s neck and breasts. The night carried on as such. Two on one. Three. Four. Legion conjured sensations from Dryst that she hadn’t known she could feel simultaneously. Pure ecstasy. But that was the nature of fae folk. Life for them was pleasure, power, immortality, and beauty - all wrapped up in an animalistic innocence, be they good faeries or bad. 

  
  
  



	16. Curses and Gifts

Dis was mostly abandoned, save for the random, skittering _things_ that made tracks in the filth along the cracked streets winding between crumbling buildings. Scavengers finding little luck. 

Dryst and Legion trotted through the city on horseback, the horse’s hooves amplified by the stillness of whatever the hell brought this city to ruin. 

“I have no memory of ever being here,” said Legion. “And yet… this place bears familiarity.” 

Flocks of black birds cawed overhead, fluttering away to the next corpse for a meal. 

“Who would have lived in such a place?” asked Dryst. 

“Mortals,” snorted Legion. He checked his parchment - the doorway on the paper glowed brighter than it had in Gilead. They must have been drawing closer. Passing crumbling pillars that once held up tall buildings, the two spied signage and writings on dilapidated storefronts. Most of the lettering had faded, rendering them illegible. On occasion, they’d pass a heap of bones picked bare by bird and insect alike. Legion paid little mind - he only sought the doorway. 

Rounding a corner, they came upon a train station - empty. The train, itself, derelict and derailed, covered in debris, dust, and pieces of a broken city. Legion blinked, noticing something that wavered in the air just ahead, like heat rising from the pavement on a cloudless, summer afternoon. The parchment glowed brighter, so bright that it was nearly blinding. It emitted a _sound._

Legion instructed Dryst to direct Penelope toward the aberration near the train station. “The fabric is thinnest here,” he said. 

“The fabric?” asked Dryst. 

“What nets us into this half-starved hell,” explained Legion. 

The sound grew louder, coming from both the parchment and the _door._ The door was nothing more than this swirling pocket, hovering in the air about as tall as a man. Legion and Dryst dismounted from the horse and approached the peculiar, thinning fabric of reality. 

“That was Maerlyn’s map,” said a voice. 

Both the Greater and lesser fae turned around. 

_Flagg._ He hovered above them, shrouded in his black robes as an unnatural current lifted his garments in everchanging directions. 

“And what do you want?” asked Legion, his tone unimpressed. 

Flagg pointed a long, sharp finger out from the gaping, black sleeve of a dark wizard’s robes. “Just her.” A bolt of energy escaped that very finger, hitting Dryst square in the chest. She was knocked to the ground, unconscious. 

Legion’s arched, black eyebrows furrowed tightly together. “You cannot take her. She has entered a _pact_ with me - as have _you. As has your King and the sorcerer who brought me here from the darkness!”_ He paused, baring his sharp teeth. “You are _all_ doomed to die.” 

Though his face was hidden beneath the hood, Flagg grinned. “Then if not _her_ \- hand over the parchment. I trust it has no _pact_ with you.”

“It is of no further use to me.” Legion tossed the map to the air and Flagg drew it toward him, into his palm. The Greater Fae tilted his head inquisitively. “But, tell me, of what use would it even bring you?”

“There are other worlds than these,” replied Flagg. “This we know, for it has been said time and time again. This map is Maerlyn’s map. You discovered _one_ door, but I will discover many, _many_ more.” He paused, staring out from the shadows of his hood. His eyes fixed on Legion. “Before I leave the two of you,” continued Flagg, “bear _this_ truth as a curse upon you. Your death will happen, someday - but not for a very long time. May it be so long that you sleep and you forget. You will forget who _you_ are.” He gestured to Dryst, sprawled across the ground. “You will forget who _she_ is. You will forget how you ever came to be. _Yes._ You will come to know only your appetite. It will dominate you until the _smallest and weakest of mortals_ become your undoing.” Flagg laughed, then attempted to turn away with the map in hand. 

“Not so fast,” said Legion. “You’ve had your curse, now I will have mine. Flagg The Hooded… Randall Flagg… _Walter…_ may _you_ never know an end. May you relive your pathetic servitude to that bloated, pompous, _erasable_ crimson dictator again, and again, and again. I will someday die, but you shall forever be humiliated. Forever pursued by The One Who Spies You From Across The Desert.” 

Flagg scoffed at the curse, but suppressed a deep, resonating _fear._ Somehow, Legion knew what frightened him most and that unsettling feeling never left Flagg, no matter where he was, what world he’d disgraced, or how close he ever thought he’d been to a victory for The Outerdark. 

Legion lifted Dryst into his arms, cradling her close. He stepped near the thin tear in the fabric of this world. As he did so, he remembered Flagg saying that the map belonged to Maerlyn. Dis seemed familiar and the reason _why_ was no longer a mystery. Maerlyn tore open this fabric in space and time - _here._ This was where the sorcerer brought forth the chaos, including the Orange Bend. It must have been that very chaos which set forth ruin on the city of Dis. _Legion’s_ chaos. 

He stepped one foot through the door. The cracked, empty sphere of the Orange Bend dropped from his person and rolled away into the dusty streets. Holding Dryst to his chest, Legion stepped through the door of Maerlyn. The door to the void. 

* * *

Dryst stirred. Darkness surrounded her. It was cold. She felt a body next to her - warm and sinewy. Wet. Asleep. _Naked._ It was Legion. She shook him but he did not respond. Dryst heard the Greater Fae breathing heavily as he slept - it was as if he slept so deeply that no amount of effort would wake him. She waited for some time. Hours. A day. A week. Legion did not wake. Dryst continued waiting in the cold darkness. Two weeks. Three. A month. She slept beside Legion when weariness took her, but eventually she could no longer remain in the dark. It was so dark… they must have been deep underground. _Somewhere._ Her eyes could no longer stand it. Dryst crawled over Legion and kissed him on the forehead. Something about his body was changing. The forehead seemed broader… larger. As if he was slowly losing his original humanoid form as he slumbered. Legion was changing into a Forgotten Thing. Dryst thought it best to leave him be. There was nothing left for her here… deep in the darkness… next to a sleeping, hungering evil. 

“Come find me someday, should you wish,” she lovingly whispered. Dryst did not realize that Legion no longer had memories of her. And so… find her? He never would. The Greater Fae only slept and dreamed of devouring worlds. Devouring mortals. Consuming all. It was the curse, after all. Flagg’s curse upon the Orange Bend and his greatest, darkest _gift_ to the mortal world of earth. Dryst did not know these things. She was a Good Faery. She was innocent. 

Dryst spread her wings and cautiously rose upward, taking care to avoid what felt like cavernous walls above. She continued her ascent until her eyes detected a glimmer of light from above, twinkling from behind a small _door._ Dryst pushed the little door above her head and it flipped open like a hatch. Through it she fluttered and behind her it slammed shut, almost eerily the sound of it echoed against the underground walls, as if the door had a mind of its own, knowing exactly what kind of living hell it stored below. A hell that would not emerge until many years from this moment - until a township of mortals grew somewhere on the northeastern coast of what would become the United States. These things Dryst did not know. 

The blue faery continued upward until she was no longer in the underground realm. The first thing she heard was the sound of running water. The first thing she saw was a wild jungle-like forest that sprawled against a hilly landscape beneath the warm sun. No sign of mortals. Although there were large, scaled animals off in the distance, grazing along a grassy watering hole. Colorful bugs flitted about, from plant to plant. Dryst smiled.

This world was much different from the one she’d left behind. And with that realization, the faery felt a sudden urge to wave her hand at a nearby plant teeming with green, unbloomed buds. As Dryst swished her palm across the plant, each bud burst open, blooming wide and bright and pink - heeding Dryst’s command. 

“I’m a bit more powerful in this world,” she thought to herself. The old world had her weak. This new world amplified whatever strength she gained through her time with Legion. Dryst cautiously flew through the dense jungle with this knowledge - eager to put it to work. The vegetation seemed to sparkle, glow, and sway along the path she flew, as if Dryst was a natural magnet - a conductor of magic and _life_ itself. The faery spent some weeks flying far, free, and sleeping in gargantuan, prehistoric flowers. Then came the day she discovered a small pit of clay, just at the water’s edge of a natural basin. Dryst grabbed a clump of clay and decided to make a faery just as magical as herself. Body. Head. Limbs. Wings. It was so fun, she thought, that she made another clay faery doll. And another. _And another._

Dryst stared curiously at the clay sculptures - then waved her hand at them just as she did with the plants. Their muddy arms and legs turned to flesh. Their tiny wings began to flutter. Amused, Dryst clapped her hands. The small faeries clapped their hands back. Then they zipped and buzzed around her playfully and asked, “Can you make some more?” They cheered in very tiny voices at their creator. Dryst smiled. She set to work and created more faeries - each of them different. Unique. “You’re free here,” she told the small faeries.

And so, Dryst continued with this endeavor, largely living out the rest of her immortal life in happiness. No death ever came to her as a result of her pact with Legion - for he never remembered her, so he never remembered the pact. It was null and void. To the small faeries, however, Dryst was Queen. She was indeed a Greater Fae to them, but never asked anything of them… never anchored herself to them. 

When the age of the mortals came, many did indeed recognize the faeries of the earth. Some believed. Some didn’t. Some said that faeries had a _shine_ about them, while others insisted they were the cause of great mischief. This was just fine to Dryst, because each faery had been unique. Good or bad, the faeries spread throughout the mortal world of earth and preserved an animalistic innocence that transcended the ages.

* * *

**Epilogue:**

What are the rules for encountering a Greater Fae? Many have forgotten over the ages - or were never taught these rules to begin with. 

The number one rule, however, is to never accept anything from a Greater Fae. Never eat or drink what a Greater Fae offers, even if it smells as delicious as peanuts or popcorn. Never take anything a Greater Fae offers to you - even if it looks like a toy you once owned. 

If you break these rules, if you are too foolish to heed these warnings, you will give the Fae absolute power over you and this will mean your death. 

_"Take it."_

**The End**


End file.
